The Diary
by Genevastar
Summary: The events of series 8 from one character's point of view, with a few additional events from my own imagination. THIS STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SERIES 8!
1. Chapter 1

**_I'm so sorry, I really have made a mess of uploading this. I noticed half of chapter 3 was missing, but in uploading a full version and having to re-arrange everything, I then 'lost' chapter 1. I hope the story is up in full again now, and I really do apologize to anyone who's got as confused as I was. _**

THE DIARY

Chapter 1

I flinch as I open the door to the roof of Thames House. Down below on the street it might be a sunny day, but up here the wind's bloody freezing, and I don't have a coat. I almost go back down, but then I think about the muttered comments and sideways glances that await me and seek out a sunny corner behind the metal box housing the generator instead. It also has the advantage of making me invisible from the stairs. Comes in useful, sometimes, being so skinny.

The coffee I bought from the machine on the way up is, as ever, virtually undrinkable, but I haven't wanted to go to the bar for a decent one. Everyone in the building knows by now exactly how Jo died. I know nobody will actually dare to say anything to me, but the looks are enough. I don't expect people to understand why I acted as I did. I barely understand it myself. I think Harry does, but Harry has Ruth at his elbow and she's already stuck a label on me – cold, heartless, immoral. I'm not convinced by her periodic displays of concern, all that 'Ros, are you all right?' business. That's for Harry's benefit. Anyway, Ruth's never been in the field, and her idea of a moral dilemma is whether or not to put down a sick cat. To her, everything's black and white. She's never had to cope with the moral schizophrenia field officers have to deal with every day, and on top of that she keeps chattering on to me about Jo. Maybe she thinks constantly talking about her will make things easier to bear. As if. She always mothered Jo, and however much she keeps telling me it wasn't my fault, I know perfectly well she blames me for her death. Well, that's something I can do on my own. I don't need Ruth Evershed's help.

I sit down with my back against the metal casing. It strikes cold, and I shiver, but there's some weak warmth from the sunlight. Anyway, I don't care about being cold right now. I just need a little bit of respite from the eyes – just for a while.

And I'm so bloody tired. I haven't slept the night through since Jo. Most nights I lie awake, and when I _do_ get to sleep, I dream about her, keep seeing her face and hearing the gun. Over and over again, like a tape on a continuous loop. Half the time, I actually _try_ to keep myself awake because I so dread going through it all again. I often spend most of the night pacing the flat. And drinking, sometimes – yes, me, Ros Myers, who rarely has more than a glass of wine, hitting the bottle. Pathetic.

I think Harry suspects something. This morning he phoned me at half past six. I didn't answer – well, I couldn't. I was crying my bloody eyes out at the time. Something else I never do. Or never _did_. Once. I phoned him back later, when I'd pulled myself together. He had a good excuse for ringing, but I think he called because he's worried that I'm not coping. I told him I'm fine and to stop fussing me like an old mother hen, but I don't think he's convinced. Harry saw me after Hampstead. I don't remember much about how I got back to the Grid; a lot of it is a blank. I can tell you exactly what Jo was wearing when I shot her, and I could describe every detail of the expression on her face as she fell, but after that all I have is partial flashes. I can vaguely recall Harry being in the panic room, and I can remember him helping me to the car, because I was incredibly cold, and he wrapped his coat round me on the way. I have no memory of Lucas being there at all. The Thames House doctor tells me I was catatonic with shock and couldn't stand unaided. Apparently Harry carried me in his arms from the garage to medical. I doubt if my claiming I'm 'fine' is going to make him forget all that.

Wearily, I sip the coffee. It's warm, but that's about all. Still, the warmth is welcome, because sun or not, I'm getting really cold now; my hands are freezing. I ought to go down soon, but not yet. Just a little longer. I can't go AWOL too long anyway – that just starts the fussing up again. I make sure I'm properly dressed and made-up every day when I come to work so that Harry doesn't get the impression I'm letting myself go. Cover up the bags and the bleary eyes, that kind of thing. The last thing I want is for him to send me to Tring and the shrinks. It's bad enough having to go to the in-house psychologist here, but at least with him I can go on working. And I suppose he's all right. I just can't talk to him. He doesn't understand. I don't think anyone can, except Harry.

I'm trembling by the time I finish the coffee. I try to tell myself it's just because I'm so cold, but I don't think that's the only reason. In the car park this morning a motorbike backfired and startled me. I suppose I had a panic attack or something like it. I was shaking so badly that my teeth were chattering and I couldn't get my breath at all for a few minutes. To make things worse, Tariq cycled in while I was still trying to get myself back in hand. When he asked if anything was the matter I snapped his head off, but I could see he didn't believe my assurances. I think he's still too frightened of me to have run with tales to Harry, but I'm not sure.

I get up and check carefully that's there's nobody else around before I return to the stairwell. There's a radiator on the first landing, so I sit on the step alongside it for a few minutes to warm myself before I return to the Grid. In all truth I don't think Harry needs reports about me, from Tariq or from anyone else. He knows I'm not handling this very well. It's only a matter of time before he faces me with it.

I hear voices and laughter drifting up the stairs and scramble hastily to my feet. I don't need a couple of gossipy junior officers finding their section chief hiding from the world on a grubby staircase. Fortunately the voices go down instead of up, and I sink back down again. I suppose it shows what a state I've got myself into that I almost wish Harry _would_ face me with it. Yes, I'm terrified that he'll put me on enforced leave or send me to Tring. I don't know what I'll do if I can't work. I _am_ my job; I'll be nothing without it. At the same time, if I'm honest, I _want_ to talk to him. Ever since I pulled that bloody trigger I've felt so alone – except when he's around. It makes me want to howl every time I see him looking at me with that worried expression on his face. Every time he asks me if I'm all right. Of course I tell him yes; what else can I do? I know he's still got doubts about Lucas, and he needs me to be strong and reliable. It's not fair for me to burden him, but God, I wish I could.

I get to my feet again. _Time to get back, Myers, before he sends out a search party. _I've had my break, and the longer I sit up here, skulking away from everyone, the harder it is to go and face them down again. And the Ice Maiden (yes, of _course_ I know what they call me, it's my bloody job to know) doesn't run away. So I brush the dirt off my clothes and head back downstairs towards the Grid.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't make it back to the pods before Ruth comes running up the corridor towards me, all long skirts and ethnic beads, panting something about a prison break, Lucas, and a Russian. I can't make head or tail of it, and I tell her so. I see the scowl on her face, but it cuts no ice, not this afternoon. I'm tired, I've got a headache, and I don't have either the time, or the inclination, to massage Ruth's ego. I know everyone else is all gaga and dewy-eyed about her return, and I know she's bloody good at her job, but her flapping about and the constant 'I am the moral conscience of Section D' act is driving me mad. I refuse to listen to the voice whispering in my ear that I'm jealous of her closeness to Harry, and I stamp – hard – on the occasional flicker of unease I feel for my role in driving her into exile. And I say, she and Jo were as thick as thieves, and that doesn't help me feel any more at ease around her, either. But whether I like it or not, she's got Harry's ear, so I have to make an effort.

She's still burbling when we reach Harry's office, but I notice, not, I admit, without a twinge of satisfaction, that his eyes go straight to me rather than her, when we enter. It looks as if he and Lucas have been arguing about something; Harry looks red in the face, and Lucas distinctly sullen. It suddenly dawns on me that he also looks even worse than I feel. He's sheet-white, looks as if he's seen a ghost, and there are red rims to his eyes that I hope and pray are just caused by tiredness.

"What is it?" I ask. Ruth is still hovering at my shoulder, but after a minute or two I feel her melt away. Harry explains the situation quickly and concisely, and Lucas shows me the flowers and card that have been delivered to his desk. I make a mental note to find out _how_; last time I looked, the Russians weren't supposed to have unfettered access to the Grid. When Lucas says that he wants to go and meet Oleg Darshavin, my first instinct is to say no way, but then I hesitate. Just like Harry, I have my doubts about Lucas, and the strain on him of seeing the man who abused him so brutally for four years during his captivity in Russia is going to be huge. I debriefed him when he came home. He told me about the beatings, the hunger and cold, and the psychological pressure to which Darshavin and that swine Kachimov subjected him. However, he seems determined now, and in intelligence terms, he does have a point. Darshavin's knowledge will be enormously valuable to us, and it's a safe bet that he hasn't contacted Lucas just for a friendly chat about old times. Also, if he's not just spinning us a yarn in talking about a terror attack, we need his information. I know what Harry's worried about – the risk of Stockholm Syndrome – and from the almost affectionate way Lucas sometimes talked about his captors during his debriefing I know that his anxiety is justified. There were times when you would have thought Darshavin was his lover rather than his jailer. When, after a lengthy hesitation, Harry comes to a decision and orders us to go together, I reassure him that I'll look after Lucas. He seems relieved that I understand the situation, which momentarily unsettles me; perhaps, despite all my efforts at normality, he thinks I'm too burdened myself to be able to grasp someone else's problems. But at least he's allowing me to go. _He still trusts me, thank God_. I resolve to get this one right. Maybe then the end of Jo's time in Section D won't necessarily have to mean the end of mine as well.

That resolution takes a battering over the next few days. Lucas deliberately flouting his orders, breaking communications with us and going off to meet Darshavin on his own –_ in his flat_, of all places! – is bad enough, but then Darshavin reveals the details of a planned bombing to be carried out by Sudanese, but with possible Russian involvement as well. At least he also tells us where the head honcho of the gang is holed up, which means I need to get into contact with an asset we have there – 'there' being a well-known drug squat in Camden Town. Harry is reluctant to let me go without back-up, but I refuse to take any. They'd stand out like sore thumbs in a place like that. Besides, although Harry's always railing at me for being underweight, even he has to admit that with my hair uncombed, some black eyeliner and the bags and shadows I've developed from sleeplessness over the last few weeks, I'll make a perfect emaciated drug addict. And they don't have heavies for protection when they're buying a fix.

Everything goes well until I crouch down in front of the informer in that filthy, stinking, foetid ante room of whatever imaginary Nirvana those poor sods think their pills and needles will take them to. Then it hits me out of the blue, completely unexpected. The kid, because that's all she is, squinting up at me through the smoke drifting from her joint, has the same naivety as Jo, and, even worse, the same huge, bush baby eyes. When I ask her how old she is, she's even the same bloody age. And I tell her – a junkie barely out of school whom I don't even know – I actually _tell_ her that she reminds me of someone I used to know who died. God knows why. Maybe because she's a silly little ass - another one, just like Jo, completely out of her depth. Running risks she can't manage, a little innocent walking into a den of wolves like a lamb to the slaughter. For a minute I want to scoop her up and carry her out of there – kicking and screaming if need be – back to her mother where she belongs. It's she who inadvertently saves me from myself by whispering the information I need, and helping to force Jo's face and those huge, haunting eyes back into the deepest depths of my memory. For a while longer, at least, I can hold on.

And I have to, especially when it becomes apparent that Darshavin's snatched the CIA liaison, Sarah Caulfield. I know Lucas has met her a couple of times for a drink. I thought that was just in the cause of friendly Transatlantic relations, but his panic now makes it obvious that there's more between them than either Harry or I were aware of. He admits he's lost control of Darshavin – a control that I don't think was ever more than wishful thinking on his part in the first place. If there have been any strings being pulled here, it's Darshavin, not Lucas, who's been the puppet-master. Nonetheless, we have no choice but to send Lucas back in, and this time I can't back him up because Harry sends me on the track of the bombers. To say I'm unhappy is the understatement of the year. Lucas is unstable, and sending him alone into a confrontation with Darshavin – _and_ with Caulfield held in the middle of it – runs counter to my every principle of how a good intelligence officer should operate.

In the end, we're lucky. _Incredibly _lucky. Despite everything, Lucas does a good job of getting the bomb code out of Darshavin, and we prevent the explosion, despite the Russians' best efforts to undermine the operation. It's too damned close for comfort, and I almost have another panic attack when I manage to stop the detonator with just two seconds to spare. At least there's nobody to see me when I throw up in the nearest public toilet a few minutes later. I know it costs Lucas to turn Darshavin over to the Russians and to break the promises he made to the man, but I leave Harry to talk to him about how he feels. Harry knows him better than I do and besides, I'm still too shaken by what happened to me in the squat. That's the first time Jo's ever come to haunt me at work. Usually I can keep her at bay while I'm on duty, and it terrifies me that she might be invading the one place I feel I'm still more or less in control.

In fact, the prospect of losing that control frightens me so much that, at our next session together, I actually talk to the psychologist about what happened. I think he's taken aback; it's the first time I've given him information that he hasn't had to prise out of me. He tells me that for a while I'll probably see something of Jo in everyone, which isn't exactly reassuring. Time, he says, the bloody fool, give yourself time, Miss Myers. _Yeah, right. And maybe you'll arrange for the terrorists to take a short holiday while I pull myself together._ He urges me to keep on recording this diary, despite the fact that I've made it clear – repeatedly – ever since he first mooted the idea, that I think it's a waste of time and effort. He insists it might be easier for me to unburden myself that way. I think that's his polite way of saying I'm utterly useless at doing so by sharing my feelings with another human being. I could have told _him_ that.

Still, despite my doubts, I've been doing as he suggests. I feel like an absolute idiot, especially since it sometimes triggers crying fits and I end up blubbing with the Dictaphone in one hand and a damp tissue in the other. But at least I don't have an immediate audience, and if playing bloody True Confessions means I can keep my job, then it's worth it.

It does seem to work for a while, too. The dreams don't stop entirely, but they become a little less frequent, and I don't get any more flashbacks on duty, thank God. I know Harry's still got his eagle eye on me, but to my relief, he doesn't ask me any questions. True, he urges me to cut down on my hours (which I don't) and he sometimes keeps me behind for coffee or a drink in the evenings. That, I admit, I accept with gratitude once I'm sure he isn't going to use it as an excuse for engaging in the kind of touchy-feely pastoral care that makes my skin crawl. Neither of us, by silent mutual consent, ever mentions Jo. We mainly talk about work, but sometimes he'll tell me stories about his army days. Occasionally we reminisce about Adam. In an odd way I think it helps both of us to do that, although it hurts, because especially since I shot Jo, I've missed Adam terribly, much more than I did before. Still, I think Harry understands that. The two of them were good friends, and he misses Adam too. And I haven't forgotten he shot Kachimov for him. We're still the only two people in the world who know about that, and it does create a bond. Not that bonds – with anyone – have ever been my speciality, but from initially loathing Harry as being the architect of my father's downfall, I've come to trust him. And for the moment, at least, that trust gives me the strength I need to keep going.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm just starting to believe that, given time, I can deal with things and come to terms with Jo's death, when Jack Colville rings me. At first I'm simply flabbergasted. I haven't heard from him for well over a decade. It's a real blast from the past to hear his voice, and it brings back a lot of memories, private memories that I've never shared with anybody. When we meet, I'm shocked by how much he's aged, and he looks ill. He waves off my concern with a few dismissive comments about foolishly making _'unwise investments' _and falling on hard times. Something about it strikes a false note; Jack had a reputation as a maverick during his time in the Service, but he wasn't stupidly reckless. I let it pass. In my early days in Six Jack nicknamed me the Human Oyster for _my_ reluctance to talk about anything personal, and I don't feel I can criticize him now. If he isn't telling me the whole truth, he'll have a good reason for it.

So, because I want to help him, I agree when he asks me to look at the manuscript of the book he's writing. I owe him that for old times' sake. He was good to me, he taught me a lot and I can admit now – at least to myself - that I think I might have grown to love him if the job hadn't separated us. I was certainly attracted to him in my younger days, and I think he was to me, too. When I see the way he looks at me and says he's missed me, I find myself wondering if he still has feelings for me now. Even so, I deflect his queries as to whether I regret having sacrificed hopes of having a family to the demands of my career, and I don't rise to his flirting. Oh, part of me wants to, even after all these years, but I can't afford to, I know. Far too much water has flowed under the bridge since I was an inexperienced junior officer of twenty-one. Still, it's the first time I've seen admiration and desire in a man's eyes since Adam died, and I feel a tiny bit less alone than before.

Until, that is, I find the bug in the manuscript file and realize he's used me to infiltrate Section D. And that it's he - Jack Colville, the man who recruited me, the man who taught me almost everything I know - who's murdered two intelligence officers. The realization makes me feel physically sick. I'd give anything to be able to deny it, but with that little chip of Tariq's in my hand I can't. When I have to brief the rest of the team about Jack I can hardly bear to look up and see their reaction. Tariq, of course, is too young to understand. He doesn't know Jack's reputation, and he's just bewildered. Lucas looks suspicious, as if he thinks it's I, rather than Jack, who's committed the betrayal. Ruth has that bloody expression of Christian forgiveness on her face, but I can see the smugness underneath it. _Ros has blotted her copybook – again_. Harry's eyes are full of pity, and that hurts more than all the rest put together. Somehow I complete the briefing and issue them all with their instructions, but I hide in the toilet for a few minutes afterwards so as to avoid Harry. I'm afraid that if he starts expressing sympathy I'll just break wide open. I can't bear to talk about the situation any longer. All I want is to get to Jack and find out why he's doing this. And it's personal now, not just professional. I can't believe the man I respected, and might even have loved if circumstances had been different, has changed so totally. I would have trusted Jack Colville with my life.

By the time I escape the booby-trap in his house by inches, and know I daren't do that any longer, the shock and hurt at what he's done have metamorphosed into sheer rage. His complacent comment that he knew I'd be '_all right_' does nothing to lessen it. I get steadily angrier as I realize that he's running rings around us, and when the opportunity comes to set a trap for him I take it. By the time Jack next breaks into the personnel records – courtesy of Rosalind Myers's careless, _stupid _sentimentality - we've managed to establish a link between his victims, even though we still don't know his exact reason for killing them. When he goes for the file of a man who was a case officer liaising with MI-6 operations in Bosnia during the civil war, I order Tariq to replace the man's name with mine. Harry tries to stop me, but I bark at Tariq to do as he's told. Poor kid, trapped between Harry and me. I'll apologize to him later. I can feel Harry's eyes on me, but I don't spare him more than a glance, just enough to glimpse the worry in his eyes. I look away again – quickly. We've already lost a CIA agent and two officers. I don't intend to let Jack take the life of another – but if he _is_ going to, then it's going to be mine and nobody else's.

When I turn away, Harry intercepts me before I can take more than a few paces, seizes my elbow and steers me none too gently into the corridor leading off the Grid.

"Ros, this is too dangerous. He'll come for you."

"I know." We both know that's precisely the point - to get Jack to come out into the open. If there's one thing that will draw him out, it will be his desire to get revenge for what he thinks I've done. I see Harry's face twist into a grimace.

"You don't have to do this, Ros."

_Yes, I do._ I look up at him. He has to understand that this decision is my responsibility. "I want to. I need to, Harry." He doesn't look either convinced or reassured, but in the end, he nods agreement, albeit very reluctantly. For a few seconds we just look at each other, and then I turn to leave.

"Ros!" I stop for a second. "No heroics."

"Yep." It's automatic; I don't mean it. I nod, turn, and head for the pods.

In the event, Jack kills himself, not me. I don't know why he spares me, especially since I almost invite him to go ahead and shoot. I know I should feel fear when he points the gun at me at point-blank range. We're in the depths of a deserted warehouse, Jack's disarmed me and taken my mobile, and the back-up Harry insisted on – CO19, and a team from Section F on the street - is out of reach because I've disobeyed Harry's orders not to go after Jack on my own. So I've no help and no way out. I should be afraid, but I'm not. If I feel anything it's more like relief. I took Jo's life in a situation in which she was completely innocent. And now Jack will balance the scales by taking mine – in revenge for something I never did. It seems like poetic justice. Maybe that's why I say to him what I do. _' If you want revenge, then you go ahead and take it. Maybe I deserve it, if not for this, then for other decisions I've taken where innocent people have got hurt.' _It may sound like a speech from a soap opera, but I mean every word. And I find myself suddenly not caring about what will happen to me as a result of it.

When he shoots himself instead I turn away, covering my face to try and blot out the echoing crack of the bullet and the sight of his body slumping to the ground. It's not just the horror of what's happening in front of me, but the gut-wrenching similarity to what occurred in Hampstead. It's all so hideously familiar. Again, I should have been the one to die. Again, someone I knew, someone I cared for, has taken my place.

After a while I sit down next to his body, making no attempt to retrieve my mobile to contact either Lucas or Harry. I feel dazed, incapable of moving. I expected oblivion by now. Instead, it's all still there: the soul-destroying guilt about Jo for which I don't think I'll ever be able to atone, the longing for Adam that will never be assuaged, and now the shame and pain of being manipulated and betrayed – _again_ - by a man I had believed in, trusted, and thought I had loved.

When Lucas finds us and alerts Harry and the emergency services, he tries to insist that I let myself be taken to hospital for a medical check but I'm having none of that. I order him back to the Grid once Jack's body has been removed, and return to the flat to clean up and change.

In the shower I finally break down, and end up standing there under the water like an idiot, stark naked, sobbing and shivering uncontrollably until I can calm myself down enough to get out and dry off.

I'm sitting in the kitchen, steadying myself with a glass of red wine and trying to forget that Jack must have been here a couple of hours ago when he broke in, when my mobile, retrieved from the warehouse, bleeps with an incoming text message from Harry. _'Well done, Rosalind. Get some rest and don't come in until the morning. Call me if you need me. Harry.'_

_He must be joking._ I drain the glass and go to wash the traces of a good howl from my face. I know Harry will be furious with me, but I can't stay here, not now. I need to be on the Grid. I need to be in control. And I need to see him.

When I walk into the meeting room, Harry is talking to Ruth and Lucas. He breaks off the instant he sees me.

"Ros, you shouldn't be here. Go home and rest." He sounds thoroughly exasperated, as I knew he would, but I can see that he's worried about other, more important things as well. I have no intention of arguing with him, but I'm not going to leave, either. So I just tell him that home is the last place I want to be. Which happens to be absolutely true. When I was in the flat, I could still sense Jack's presence, and I just can't bear it. I pretend I don't hear Harry muttering in annoyance.

"What's up?" I make the question sound as challenging as I can.

Harry gives me a look that shouts 'you haven't heard the last of this', but then the demands of work, thank God, take over. Once Ruth finishes the explanation I've interrupted, I understand his concern. I risk a swift glance at Lucas. He looks as if he desperately wants to disbelieve what they've found out about Sarah Caulfield, but can't. I want to shake him for his bloody stupidity even as I know only too well how he feels – hurt and betrayed by someone he thought cared about him. If Harry sees his reaction he gives no sign of it. Instead he cracks orders to both him and Ruth, and then growls at me.

"A word, Rosalind. _Now_."

Harry only ever calls me Rosalind when he thinks I'm upset and he's trying to comfort me, or when he's furious. It doesn't take the detective powers of Sherlock Holmes to work out which it is this time. As soon as we're inside his office he slams the door and turns on me. I brace myself as he explodes.

"Rosalind, if you won't stop driving yourself I'm going to suspend you from this section and damned well make you!" He stops as if he expects me to say something, but I deliberately refrain from doing so, even though I dread what he might say next. "You need rest, you can't go on like this!"

"Like what? What have I done wrong?" I enquire. I know the only real answer he can give is 'nothing'. I don't have to spell things out. If he suspends me without good cause I'll file an official protest, and he knows it.

"You know bloody well you've done nothing wrong!" He's spluttering in frustration, and at any other time I might feel sorry for him. I can't allow myself that luxury now; the prospect of being suspended frightens me far more than Jack pointing a gun at me did.

"Rosalind, please be sensible." Harry's tone is different now. His voice has become sympathetic and cajoling, and it reminds me of how my father talked to me when I was bullied at school and used to come home in tears. "You need to give yourself time to recover. To get through the grief."

"I can do that at work." I play what I hope will be my trump card. "And you need me here, Harry."

He looks daggers at me. "I need you whole and functioning!"

"And when haven't I been?" I shoot back.

For a full minute he glares at me and I glare back. At last, Harry shakes his head.

"You'll drive yourself over the edge in the end," he says heavily.

_I won't need to, _I think bitterly._ Jo, Jack, my family, they'll do it for me. _I lift my chin and meet his eyes.

"All right, all right." He looks resignedly at me. "But Ros, no more all-night stints. Tonight I want you to go home. Once we know Lucas is with Caulfield you and I are leaving. Together. Clear?"

I know I've pushed as far as I can, and I've at least won a reprieve, so I nod. Harry's trying to help, after all. He can't know about the revulsion that swells in me at the idea of returning to the flat.

"Have you eaten?" he enquires suddenly.

I can't remember if I have or not, and _'a while ago_' is the best I can do.

"Anything in the fridge?"

That I _can_ answer. "Not much. I'll find something."

"No need. Mine's just as empty. I'll drive you back and we can get a takeaway en route and share it. OK?"

_He does know_, I realize suddenly. He knows exactly how much I dread going home alone. And I don't believe for a moment that his fridge is empty. My normal reaction to his suggestion would be to get angry at being patronized. Now I can feel tears stinging my eyes, a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude. I still have to make some objection, though, even if it's only a token one.

"I – I thought you were taking Ruth for a drink?"

"It'll wait. I'm hungry." He smiles, and I do my best to smile back. When he returns from speaking to Ruth he looks a little crestfallen. I imagine Ruth isn't any too happy at having her evening ruined, but before I can say that he should stick to his original plan, he says briskly: "Let's go. Lucas will stay in touch."

He's as good as his word, stopping to buy two pizzas and a bottle of wine on the way. When we get home he wonders aloud how Jack got in and asks me to describe what I found when I arrived. I initially want to throttle him for being so insensitive, but I'll be damned if I'll let him see how much this whole bloody mess is upsetting me. It's only when he's had a thorough look around, we're sitting down to eat and I'm sipping my wine that it dawns on me that telling him about what happened has actually helped; some of the apprehension knotting my stomach has gone. Harry goes on chatting about the Jack Colville he remembers from his own days as a field officer. I find myself gradually relaxing; I even talk a bit myself. It's – well, I don't know – comforting to hear stories about Jack as he was. As the friend I remember, and not as the hunted man of the last few days. And it's such a _relief_, even if it's just for an hour, to have someone to talk to.

When Harry's mobile rings, I'm shocked to see that he's been here for over two hours and that it's close to midnight. Despite the hour, all my senses go on alert when he puts the call on the loudspeaker and I hear Lucas's voice. He's whispering, but he's got the intel we need. _'She lied'._ As he speaks, I hear anger._ Good._ It's a lot healthier for all of us for him to be angry with that bitch than mooning all over her.

Harry hears him out, warns him again to take no risks and ends the call.

"Tomorrow," he says at last. "We'll brief the Home Secretary tomorrow. While she's in Lucas's bed, she's neutralized."

I nod my agreement, while making a mental note to read Lucas the riot act for not having had Nancy bloody Drew vetted as per regulations.

"And talking of bed," Harry smiles, "do you think you could try to get some sleep now, Ros?"

"Yes." A few hours ago the thought would have terrified me. Now, thanks to him, I can at least face trying. We both get up, and there's a moment of awkwardness. Mostly my fault; I desperately want to thank him for his kindness, but I can't find the right words. In the end Harry breaks the silence.

"At least Jack knew an outstanding intelligence officer when he saw one. I can forgive him almost anything for that." I look away from him, silently cursing myself for the flush I can feel warming my face. "I hope you will, too, eventually."

I mumble something about trying and walk him to the door. On the step Harry pauses and gives me a smile.

"All right?"

"Yes." I swallow hard. "Thank you, Harry."_ Such an inadequate, pathetic little phrase._ Without him, I would probably have spent the evening wandering the streets alone in order to put off coming home.

"The pain will go eventually, Ros. Believe me. Try and remember the good times."

I feel him squeeze my hand and make an effort. "I will."

"Goodnight then. I'll be going to see Blake first thing. If you feel rested enough to come - "

"I'll be there." _Even if I have insomnia for the rest of the night._ I know he wants me with him and I want to go.

He nods. "Good. Thank you, Ros. Goodnight."

I wave him off. Alone again – and yet I don't feel it. Harry's cared enough to sit and metaphorically hold my hand for a couple of hours; I'm alone, but I don't feel lonely.

_You should be ashamed of being so bloody soppy, Myers. _I turn out the lights and make my way to bed. The shrink asked me about my 'relationship' with Harry. I told him I didn't have one, and that he was just my boss. Had he read my Service record back further than to the day of Jo's death, he'd doubtless have joined the psychological dots at once. My father, Jack Colville … now Harry. I can hear it from here. '_Rosalind needs the support and affection of an older male figure. This reflects an unfulfilled yearning for parental approval, etc, etc, etc.'_

I wriggle under the duvet, savouring the warmth of it, and pull it over my head, silently praying that Jo will leave me alone tonight. All I know is that Harry's a friend, and someone I can trust. And I refuse to dwell on the fact that I trusted my father and Jack too. I can't let what they've done destroy my belief in Harry. He understands me, and I need him. I think we need each other.


	4. Chapter 4

Our meeting with Nicholas Blake is postponed unexpectedly the next day, and for three days we receive neither an explanation for the delay nor a new appointment. There are rumours swirling around Whitehall of a Government reshuffle, news that Harry greets with a grunted comment that the PM shuffles more frequently than his iPod does. In the meantime we get on with digging into Nightingale while we wait for the summons. Ruth and Tariq are both persistent and thorough, but whoever's behind this is clever and bloody well organized. Lucas is still probing Sarah Caulfield, but we're not making anywhere near as much progress as we need.

When we finally get the call to the Home Office, four days later than scheduled, and Blake shares the glad tidings with us, neither of us can believe our ears. The UK, bankrupt? Unable to pay its own civil servants or its national debt? Like Argentina or some tin-pot little African dictatorship?

Harry's language on the way back to the car is putrid. I hardly say anything; I'm too shocked by the potential consequences of what we've been told. Blake knows, of course, about the operation we've been running for a while in de Witts bank, and that's why he called us in. It's one of the few institutions that haven't wobbled during the financial earthquake. The crooks, robber barons and despots that make up its client base aren't often affected by a mere banking collapse. De Witts doesn't have an honest customer on its books. The government's plan – it smacks more of desperation to me – is to seize enough of the bank's ill-gotten gains for long enough to plug UK Limited's financial leak. Which means I have to contact and squeeze my asset inside.

Ryan Baisley is a repulsive little worm of a man whom we caught engaged in some very tricky and very clever tax evasion schemes. Given the distinctly unsavoury nature of de Witts activities, we decided not to prosecute, and turned him instead. I've been running him as a mole in the bank for almost a year. When Harry orders me to set up a meeting with him, I do so with absolutely no enthusiasm. He is a disgusting individual, greedy, dishonest, and with an enormous chip on his shoulder. He reminds me of a little ferret, and he has a whiny Glaswegian accent that grates on my ear. So when Sarah Caulfield, who's been sicked on us by the CIA on the grounds that some of their worthies are squirrelling money away there too, starts bullying him, I don't exactly feel a massive urge to protect him. Certainly not after he demands five million dollars for his information.

I stalk out in disgust before I can give in to the temptation to punch him on his little, pointed ferrety nose. Caulfield's at my heels, demanding Baisley be handed over to the CIA._ Dream on, Mata Hari._ If she thinks I believe all the Obama PR about the new, squeaky-clean, Play-It-By-The-Rules CIA, then she's even more of a fool than I take her for. Baisley would be history within hours. So instead we leave him to stew with the guards for a while. He can think about what might happen to him if de Witts and its charming clientele cotton on that he's been siphoning off details of their financial shenanigans. And Miss USA can go and report back on our special bloody relationship in the meantime.

Of course, leaving him to stew stops being an option pretty damn quickly when the safe house is attacked and he goes on the run. Things start to go seriously pear-shaped when his partner and child are found murdered in the kitchen of their home. We do at least manage to get his ex-wife and child taken into temporary police custody for their own safety, and Harry orders me over to the station to collect them while Tariq carries on trying to track Baisley down. The only trace we have of him so far is the recording of the warning message we found on his girlfriend's answering machine. I persuade Ruth to give me the tape, and in the car outside the police station I listen to it to see if I can pick up any nuance the others may have missed.

_Bad mistake, Ros._ However much of a little weasel he may be, his terror and panic are dreadful to hear. Once it wouldn't have affected me; now I can feel tears welling up. I got him into this, so his loss and his predicament are my responsibility. When I can't bear to listen any longer, I lean forward in order to flick the tape off and in the process catch sight of the week's post, which I've left lying on the passenger seat. Without even really thinking I pick the letters up instead. The bank, my insurers, and – I stare at the third envelope, stunned and incredulous – a misdirected letter … addressed to Jo Portman.

I hear my own voice whispering, 'Oh no, God, no'. I drop the envelopes as if they were red-hot. My chest feels as if it's banded with iron and my head is spinning. Everything is sliding out of focus, and I can feel cold sweat running down my spine as the panic begins to take control. The tape of Baisley's call is still running, and his voice – _I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ – is an eerie echo of what my own mind is screaming to Jo.

Two police officers save me from a full-blown collapse, and in so doing, unwittingly save the lives of Ryan Baisley's ex-wife and child. One bangs irritably on the window and yells at me for parking right in front of the main doors, and the sound stems the rising flood of panic. Flashing my MI-5 pass at him also reminds me why I'm here and what I'm supposed to be doing, and I hurry into the station. The desk officer is equally hostile, but then he mutters about how many _more_ bloody MI-5 officers it takes to collect one woman and a kid, and I bolt for the holding cells – just in time to prevent both being shot dead.

It's only when I get the two of them safely back to Thames House that it hits me how close that minute's indulgent self-pity in the car brought me to causing the deaths of two more innocent people. After I've spoken to Baisley's ex-wife I leave Ruth to administer tea and sympathy to her and go back to work. I know I'm not thinking clearly, not the way a field officer with fifteen years experience should be. It's not just the truly appalling prospect of national bankruptcy that's driving me now. I have to find Baisley for my own sake, too. His selfishness, stupidity and greed still revolt me, but I have to find him because I can't bear having to answer for another death. As it is, my burden of guilt about Jo seems to be getting heavier to carry by the day. I can't face any more.

When we do finally manage to track Ryan down at King's Cross station and Tariq establishes contact with him, it's obvious that he's almost hysterical with fear and panic. I know it will stampede him further if my own tension communicates itself to him, so I put every ounce of control I still have into keeping my voice calm and level. I don't know how convincing my efforts are to Ryan, but I don't think they persuade Harry. He can see me, of course, as well as hear me, and he obviously doesn't like what he sees. He's hovering at my elbow as if he fears I'll go to pieces at any second.

The thirty seconds we have to wait for Ryan to return our initial call seem interminable. Nobody breaks the silence, and I don't look at any of the others; I close my eyes to blot them out. This is between him and me now. Either I get him to trust me, or he dies.

Which is why, when he asks my name, I tell him. To build trust. At least that's what I tell Harry when he calls me on it immediately afterwards. He doesn't believe me. Why should he? I could have given any one of three professional aliases. I needn't have told the reckless little fool my real name. To have done so breaks every rule of operational protocol. _And_ it makes no sense, given that I lie immediately afterwards. To keep Baisley with us, I swear to him that his partner and child are safe when he asks me – even though I know they're both in a hospital morgue.

I know I've given Harry every right to discipline me on the spot. Instead he stops and asks me, very gently, if the psychologist has talked to me about displacement. I stare at the floor and say nothing. I know what he means, and I can't bear to see his compassion.

"Ros." He comes close, and I feel his hand on my arm. There's such kindness in his voice that I still don't know how I keep the tears at bay. "Ros, saving Baisley won't bring Jo back."

He's hit the nail so squarely on the head that I can't find anything to say. He's right, and we both know it. Ros Myers the hard nut, the Ice Maiden of Section D, has allowed herself to get emotionally involved. To me, saving Baisley will, help me to atone, at least in part, for causing the death of Joanna Portman. I feel as if a knife has been thrust into my guts, but at the same time, I'd give anything to be able to let go and share my anguish and despair with him. Instead, I grit my teeth and face him down with as much defiance as I can muster.

"No. Be nice for Baisley, though." I turn on my heel and walk away, leaving him standing there.

From then on I'm constantly aware not only of Harry watching my every move but of Ruth covertly joining in. Thank God Lucas is too busy trying to either unmask or undress the Caulfield woman to have noticed that something may be wrong with me and that Tariq is still too nervous around me to say anything even if he has. I have to admit they both do a superb job of infiltrating de Witts computer system, though. It was widely thought to be impregnable. It's the information they extract that allows me to connect enough dots to give us Baisley's whereabouts.

I practically run from the Grid, desperate to get to him before de Witts' hired thugs (ex-CIA, another love token from Sarah bloody Caulfield) - and before Harry tries to stop me. When I find him, I can't believe the little runt is _still_ going on about money. He's been blackmailing de Witts, he's in hiding for fear of his life and he _still_ seems to believe Perrot's going to do a deal with him! He seems incapable of understanding that what he's doing won't buy him a new life; he's more likely to end up throwing away the one he's got. I've never really been a political lefty – you don't get much chance to be when you're born Jocelyn Myers's daughter – but if this kind of obsessive 'I'm Entitled' greed is what our current system breeds, then maybe the egalitarian socialist state isn't such a bad idea after all.

I'm on the verge of screaming sense into him when a car crawls past outside, slowly, as if the driver's looking for something. When it reverses to come level with the house I grab Baisley and all but throw him out of the door and into the car. How the hell the two of us don't end up as road kill as a result of my reversing like a bat out of hell down the road while being fired at by an oncoming car I have no idea. And all for what, because the little rat does yet another runner while I'm firing back at the opposition.

I think that's when I finally break. I don't want to go into the details of how I get the director of de Witts bank to confess how he'd set Baisley up for his bloody hit squad. I'm not sorry for what I did, but I _am_ ashamed, and above all, I don't want Harry to learn of it. His respect means everything to me, and my life sometimes feels so empty that I can't bear to lose that as well. When I phone in to alert him he doesn't ask how I've found out, and I don't offer an explanation. Instead, I drive hell for leather for Liverpool Street station while he alerts CO19 and issues me with dire warnings of the consequences if I don't wait for the squad before going after Baisley.

I don't, of course. Wait. I can't. I'm beyond controlling my emotions now. What I said to Perrot is true; Baisley's no innocent, not the way Jo Portman was. I don't even like him, but I'm responsible for him now, the way I was for her. I failed Jo. I couldn't keep her safe, and I lived while she died. This time, I don't care how many rules have to be broken or how high the price, I _will_ protect Ryan Baisley.

And the price is high - higher than I ever imagine. I reach him just in time to throw him to the ground as the metal cage of the staircase echoes and rattles under the impact of the bullets. I'm still on my knees, holding him and shielding him with my body when the CO19 unit arrives. But he's safe. Intact. Still alive, and I'm so dazed with relief afterwards that I don't even hear the TV newsflash about his family until I realize he's gawping at the screen.

The trip back to Thames House is a nightmare. I can't console him; he won't listen to me, and at any rate I have no idea what to say. The CO19 commander has instructed one of his men to drive us. A colleague sits in the back to keep Baisley at a safe distance after he attacked me on the station ramp, clawing at my face, kicking and punching me and screaming obscenities. I stare out of the window on the journey across town; I can't bear to look at him, and I don't want the CO19 officer to see how hard I'm struggling not to cry. Adrenaline crash, I suppose. He notices, of course, despite my best efforts, passes me a tissue and asks 'does it hurt?' I almost laugh. Oh, it hurts all right. It hurts worse than I could ever explain - to him or to anyone else. I shake my head. I have Baisley. That's all that matters now. I have Baisley. It's over.

But it isn't, of course. Because we still need his information. When we get back to the Grid, Harry's up to his ears, phones ringing on all sides. Lucas, Ruth and Tariq are in and out of his office in a whirlwind of activity as they prepare the move to seize de Witts assets. But they can't do it – any of it - without the list of account numbers. It's inevitable, I suppose, that Harry asks me to get the information from Baisley. The Doomsday clock is almost at midnight; we have a little less than three hours.

"There's nobody else, Ros. He knows you. I know you can persuade him." Perhaps something of my feelings shows on my face, for he puts his hand on my shoulder for a moment. 'I'm sorry."

There's nothing I can say, so I just nod. I can't tell him that I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can cope with looking the man in the face, never mind convince him to give up his information. I feel as if I'm drowning in the tears I dare not let myself shed, and the guilt I feel - about his family, for Jack, for Jo – is like a leaden strait-jacket crushing and suffocating me.

I divert to the toilets on the way to the interview room where Baisley's under guard, just in case, even now, he should think to run again. Thank God the place is deserted. I splash cold water on my face and hold my wrists under the cold tap to try and steady myself. My hands are trembling like a drunkard's. After a few minutes I force myself to look in the mirror, but it isn't my own face I see; it's Jo's, Jack's, Adam's … even my father's. It's a composite nightmare of everyone whose memory hurts me most.

I turn away from it and head for the lifts. If I don't do this now, this minute, I won't be able to do it at all.

I dismiss the officers on guard outside the interview room. They're reluctant to go - the CO19 officer's told them about Baisley's attack on me – but I insist. I know he isn't going to do that again, and even if he does, I don't care. In a way, it would be no less than I deserve.

He's slumped over the table and barely looks up when I come in and put his cigarettes at his elbow. When he does raise his head there's a venomous loathing in his face and eyes that hits me harder than any of the blows he landed at the railway station. I want to apologize for what I've allowed to happen to him, but there's no time for that. I have a job to do. Before I can speak, though, he throws the inevitable accusation, hatred oozing from every word. "You told me they were fine. You lied."

I admit it. I can't do anything else, and I can barely keep my voice steady enough to do that. I've never felt so helpless in a work situation. I have no tricks left to play, and no advantage to press. I can't threaten, or bully, or coerce him into telling us what we need to know. He isn't going to be intimidated by a desperate woman on the verge of tears. Besides, there's nothing that I can do to him that would be worse than what's already happened. And I can't offer comfort or promise a happy ending. We can't even allow him to see the bodies of his partner and child. So I tell him we're desperate. I tell him why. And because it's the only option left to me, I'm reduced to begging. Pleading with him to give us the account names so that the government can prevent the unthinkable. And so that Rosalind Myers, Senior Case Officer - or what's left of her - can know at least that the suffering she's inflicted on him hasn't been completely pointless.

'_Please'_. When he gets to his feet after I've whispered that one, despairing word, I think for a moment he's going to walk out on me, yet I don't move. I feel numb, paralysed, as if my body's been welded to the chair. My throat, my eyes, my chest are all brimming. If I move at all, I know the dam will burst. So I just watch, with my eyes burning, as he pulls off his shirt and unwinds the long spirals of plastic-wrapped, hand-written names and numbers from his body. He's snivelling and crying as he does it, and I can barely see clearly any longer through the tears in my own eyes.

When it's done and he walks away, thumping his fist impotently against the wall, I try. I manage at least to say his name, that I will keep his ex and daughter safe, but he's beyond hearing me. It's that desolate, guilt-ridden mumbling that destroys me. _'I did it … I did this to them.'_ It's the same refrain that's been tormenting me for months and suddenly I have to get out of there. I'm up on my feet, gathering the coils of plastic into my arms. I have to get away from this unbearable re-incarnation of my own agony.

I call the guards back, and when they arrive, tell them to give Baisley something to eat and drink. And to get him some clean clothes. One nods, but the other looks at me curiously.

"Are you all right, Miss Myers?"

"I'm fine." My voice cracks, belying the assertion. "I'm fine. Keep a watch on him." I swallow back the tidal wave threatening to swamp me. "He's a suicide risk. Be careful."

I return to the Grid, where the atmosphere is even more frenetic than before. Harry and Lucas are bending over Ruth, peering at her computer screen, but Harry straightens as soon as he sees me. God knows what I must look like, with a heap of crumpled, sweaty plastic in my arms.

"The names. He had them on him." It's all I can say.

The relief on Harry's face is as intense as I've ever seen it. Without moving his eyes from me he says sharply: "Lucas!"

"I'm on it." Lucas removes the bundle from me, and heads for the meeting room, snapping at two junior officers to follow him. Harry's hand squeezes my shoulder.

"Well done. I knew you'd do it." A pause. "Are you all right?" I hear the concern in his voice deepen. "What's the matter, Ros?"

"Nothing, Harry, I'm fine." I can hear the hoarseness in my own voice, the rawness that comes from trying not to cry. Even as I speak, he turns in response to a shout from Tariq in the door of the video suite. "Sorry, Ros - "

I watch him stride away across the room. Ruth hurries past me in his wake; she hasn't even noticed I'm there. Through the window of the meeting room I can see Lucas and the others unwrapping and smoothing out the crumpled paper with which Ryan Baisley had planned to buy himself and his family the fantasy life of his dreams.

_I don't belong here._ The swirling activity around me is blurred from the barely-contained tears, and suddenly it all seems completely irrelevant to me. _I have no place here. Not any longer._ I turn away and slip unnoticed through the pods.

My head is still swimming when I climb into my car. Rationally, I know I shouldn't be driving, but rationality has yielded to the intensity of my longing to get away from Thames House and everyone in it. I don't want to see anyone or speak to anyone, and there's only one place I want to be.

_**Reviews are very welcome! Thank you!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Oops, I seem to be having a few problems with the uploading and numbering of this chapter. Since I'm not very good at this posting business, I can only apologize. Whatever the site says number-wise, this IS the next chapter - and I hope it's only there once. Sorry again.**

The people in the florist's shop strategically located on the corner of Wandsworth Cemetery know me well by now. I come often – more so than Harry or anyone else on the Grid suspects. I have no idea what kind of flowers Jo liked – ironically enough, we were never close enough when she was alive to know that kind of intimate detail about each other – so I always leave the choice to the florist. When she hands me the bunch she's selected and I pay for them, she gives me a smile that I can't manage to return.

"Please." I can see she's going to ask what's wrong, and the words come out before I can prevent them. "Please don't."

She hesitates, and then silently pats me on the shoulder in lieu of whatever she'd been going to say. I flee from the shop, but I sense her in the doorway, watching me leave. I wonder, as I follow the now all-too-familiar path to Jo Portman's grave, what her reaction would be if she knew if it was I who had put her there.

The tears finally start to fall while I'm attempting to arrange the flowers. That's something else I'm no good at, and eventually I stop trying to get them right.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I can hear myself wailing the words as I sink down on the grass in front of the stone. I'm not even sure what it is I'm apologizing for or to whom as I sit there weeping, rocking back and forwards with my head in my hands – to Jo for taking her life, to Ryan Baisley for destroying his, to my own father for depriving his of any possible meaning, to Jack, to Adam for those few self-indulgent seconds on Remembrance Day that could have signed _his_ death warrant. I don't know._ L'embarras du choix._ It's all such a tangled mess of guilt and grief in my mind now that I can no longer separate one from the other anyway. Usually I don't talk to Jo or even cry when I come here. I can't. I don't have any of the reactions mourners are supposed to have at a graveside. Most people would probably wonder why I bother to come at all, and they wouldn't understand if I told them.

I make a futile attempt to dry my eyes, but I've been holding this in for far too long; only exhaustion will get the better of my tears now. It's not just the guilt gnawing its way through my mind that brings me to the cemetery. If I have no place on the Grid any more, I do here, and it's that feeling - that I belong now not with my living colleagues in Thames House but with the one who died at my hand - that keeps pulling me here. Yes, I know. If I were to tell that to the Thames House psychologist or Harry, then I'd be off duty and under suicide watch at once. That's why I've kept it to myself. Besides, Ros Myers, MI-5's very own emotional zombie, feeling like that? The brass would suspend me, and every staffer in Thames House would be doubled up laughing. But it's how I feel. No-one else knows, but ever since I shot Jo I've known my own time is coming. The shrink would probably tell me that I'm still suffering from the effects of shock and grief. Harry would explain that finding that letter from Jo was just the result of a clerical error, but it isn't, not to me. It's a reproach. And it's a summons. And the thing neither Harry, nor the psychologist will ever understand is that I don't even resent it. It certainly doesn't frighten me, because it's the only way I'll ever be able to put things right. Because it will mean that justice has been done. Jo, Ryan's wife and child, Adam, even Jack – all of them lost their lives because of me and the only way I can make amends is to be ready to relinquish what I took from them.

I turn out to be right; it's only when I'm too physically exhausted to cry any longer that the sobs tearing me apart finally come to a halt. My head is throbbing so badly from the outpouring of emotion that I can barely lift it when I feel the phone vibrating indignantly in my jacket pocket. I fumble it out and peer through swollen eyes at the screen. Inevitably, it's Harry.

I look at the inscription carved on Jo's headstone - 'Always Loved, Never Forgotten'. _Oh God. I can't go back. I can't cope. I can't do this any more. I can't._

The phone stops, offering me a second's respite, but it starts to ring again almost immediately. I know Harry won't give up. If I don't answer he'll get Tariq to locate my position, if he hasn't already. And then there'll be someone sent over here. Which means my clandestine visits to Jo and the bloody pathetic state I've allowed myself to get into will be the subject of sniggering gossip and salacious e-mails all over the building. And I'll be taken off-duty without the option.

My eyes go back yet again to the headstone. Jo walked away too, once, after she'd been snatched and raped by the Redbacks. She finally returned after Adam's death. I remember her saying that it was the only way she had to pay her respects. She still had a bad time, but we got her through it. Even I tried to help her talk things through – in my useless, stiff, buttoned-up way.

The phone has fallen silent again. Jo used to have a lot of trouble with some of the harsher decisions we have to make. I was never very sympathetic about it. I used to tell her there isn't time or space for moralising or an uneasy conscience in this job, something she could never really accept. I've never forgotten that Leigh Bennett case, just after I joined the section. I can still see the disgust in Jo's eyes at what I did, putting that girl at risk. I suppose you could say I killed her too. Certainly that's what Jo thought at the time. She never said as much in words, but I remember her asking me if I didn't feel guilt for deceiving the girl and responsibility for her death. I told her I'd acted in pursuit of a higher purpose, and I was convinced of that then. But that conviction was felt by the pre-Hampstead Rosalind Myers. And I think she's been destroyed by that gunshot as much as the girl in the grave in front of me.

The tinkling resumes, summoning me back insistently to the world I forced Jo Portman to leave so early. Either I can leave her now, carry on and try to bury my personal pain, or I can desert Harry Pearce, abdicate my responsibilities and try to bury my professional conscience._ Some choice, Rosalind._

It's then that I feel a tug at my sleeve, pulling me away from the grave. I turn, panic-stricken at the thought that one of the others might have followed me here and seen me break down. _Nothing. No-one there. _I scramble to my feet, skin crawling, butterflies literally rioting in my stomach, looking around for a fleeing figure. No-one.

I'm not given to whimsical flights of fancy, and almost anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not easily scared, but now I am. _I wasn't imagining that. _I look back at Jo Portman's grave. _What are you trying to tell me? _

The tugging sensation comes again - just as the mobile resumes its summons. Well, you can decide what you like. Maybe I'm hallucinating. Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe I blacked out for a moment. I don't know. The fact remains, I'm alone; there's absolutely no-one in sight, but someone, or something, is pulling me away from the place. Whoever - or whatever - it is makes for me the decision I don't think I had the moral strength to make for myself. I lean forward and kiss the edge of Jo's headstone.

"I'll see you soon." Melodramatic and over the top, I know, but I'm not just saying that as a standard expression of farewell; I mean it literally. I know I'll join her before very long. I know she's waiting for me, but with equal certainty, I know that for now she's urging me to leave and to respond to the people who need me in my world, not to go to her in hers. Not yet.

As I walk away I flick the phone open to take the call. To tell them I'm coming back. Back to the crises and the responsibilities. Back to Harry. Back to the Grid.


	6. Chapter 6

After that I make a greater effort. If I'm going to continue working I have to. I'm supposed to be Harry's deputy. I'm meant to offer him help and support, not add to his burdens. So I start by forcing myself to stay away from Jo's grave. I can't forget her, and despite my best efforts I don't seem able to forget a single detail of how she died, either, so I stop trying and settle for the next best thing – compartmentalizing. Which, in plain English, means that when I'm on duty I shove Jo (along with Adam, Jack, my father and Ryan Baisely) into the furthest, darkest recesses of my mind and concentrate on my job – _and nothing else._ What most of the officers under me would describe with a knowing giggle as '_sad_' – the fact that there is very little else with enough meaning in my life to distract me from it – helps. I also stop going to the psychologist. I can't block something out if I'm being made to analyse it all the time. He, predictably, isn't happy, and warns me that I'm storing up worse problems for myself in the future if I try to bury my trauma instead of facing up to it. I swallow back the urge to ask him if he's speaking from experience or just from a textbook. Neither do I tell him that I don't think I have much of a future to worry about. That would go straight to Harry, and he'd send _me_ straight to Tring. As it is, when the shrink tries to outflank me by expressing his displeasure with me directly to Harry, Harry does exactly what I had hoped he would; tells him that if I feel I can cope then that's good enough for him. Both of us can sense that this crisis is building dangerously, and he is, after all, desperately short of experienced field officers. We aren't sure where the next twist will come from; the one thing that seems inevitable is that things will come to a head sooner rather than later, and I'm determined that I won't let Harry down when they do.

For three or four days after the resolution of the bankruptcy crisis Harry orders the section to concentrate on trying to dispel the smokescreen preventing us from reaching the still shadowy members of Nightingale. It's like one of those child's kaleidoscopes that were all the rage when I was young; each time you think you can discern a pattern a fractional movement dissolves it again into an inchoate, swirling blur of colour. It doesn't help that we're also trying to field increasing demands for intelligence from the police, who are struggling to cope with growing tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities. All as a result of India and Pakistan having another of their regular sodding rounds of sabre-rattling. The plods are worried about extremists taking advantage of the situation. They have a point, so whenever we're not working on Nightingale we're liaising with and advising them, despite Harry's impatient mutterings about not having the time to baby-sit them. He's been on edge ever since Nicholas Blake was forced to resign, and he's not impressed with his replacement, Andrew Lawrence. I haven't met him yet, but Harry, who has, describes him as a '_smarmy little yuppie with an appetite for sound-bites and speechmaking'_. He's still repeating his opinion to anyone who will listen when we get reports of a dead Pakistani intelligence officer in Brick Lane market and a call from the resident ISI officer at the Pakistani embassy. _Dickie._ I can't help but smile when Harry tells me his nickname and the reason for it. And the man looks and sounds more British than the British, as well.

Which is perhaps why he doesn't do more than give a well-bred sigh when I tell him that since this is London – our patch – and not bloody Islamabad, we're going to take over the asset he's infiltrated into a group of hard-line Hindu nationalists. Of course it could be that he just has a well-developed sense of self-preservation and doesn't want to trigger the pent-up wrath that's gradually turning Harry's face a dangerous shade of puce. He gets irate enough with the CIA charging around the city like a bunch of rampaging cowboys; if all our former colonies start acting as if they own it as well, his blood pressure will soar higher than the national debt. Still, better late than never; at least we've got the asset now, and with a South Asian war by proxy threatening to break loose across the cities of the UK he couldn't have come at a better time.

When we get back to the Grid there's more news. Since Nancy Drew did a welcome runner, Lucas has been leading the team stripping her flat, and today he's returned with a memory stick he found hidden in the U-bend of the sink. It's encrypted, of course, but we put Tariq on that pronto. Lucas seems to have pulled himself together, thank God, over the last few days, although I'm still not sure he's being entirely frank with us about how he _really_ feels about Sarah. When I ask him why she didn't kill him – she had him disarmed and on his bloody knees, for God's sake – all he can produce by way of a reply is that he doesn't know. Neither do I – and that's what worries me.

I take my concerns to Harry when it becomes clear he's going to send Lucas rather than me, in to make contact with the ISI's seventeen year-old asset. To be fair to him, he hears me out, but when I express my doubts about Lucas's reliability, he shakes his head.

"Ros, I take your point. But I know Lucas. I know he's been … erratic … perhaps, over the last few weeks, but he's the best person to handle this."

I want to ask why, but I'm afraid of what I might hear - that he thinks I'm emotionally unable to cope with sending another asset, especially one who's barely out of short trousers, into danger. I can feel him watching me, and I know he's reading my mind.

"We know Victor Chatterjee's been working with Sarah Caulfield, which means this group must be part of Nightingale somehow. Lucas knows Caulfield better than anyone. He understands the way she works. And she's made a bloody fool of him, Ros. He has a very strong motive to get this right."

_And he won't hesitate to send Ashok Verkal into the lion's den if he has to. Whereas you think I might lose my nerve._ It hurts, but I won't let Harry see how much. Anyway, unbeknownst to him, I've already over-ridden Ruth's protests when she started her usual Pollyanna waffling about the immorality of asking a 17-year old boy to risk his life like this. And after all, I don't have to prove my hard-line credentials. I'm the woman who shot Joanna Portman.

Which doesn't mean to say I approach the operation with anything near the impassive control I display for the benefit of Harry and the others. I don't, especially after it becomes clear that we're facing _two_ potential attacks, not one. Thanks to Ruth's identification of and research into Victor Chatterjee, we now know that this isn't just a Hindu hothead with a grudge we're dealing with but a very sophisticated and ruthless piece of manipulation. My stomach is churning at the potential consequences; as Harry said, we have two million Muslims in this country and half a million Hindus, most of them volatile. Chatterjee seems determined to set them on a collision course with each another and we have no levers to use on him; he has no family, no relatives, apparently no associates. Ruth sums it up neatly – '_He's a loner. Nothing to live for, nothing to lose'._ She gives me an odd look as she says it. At first I think she's just throwing down the gauntlet. You know the kind of thing - _my brilliance has provided you with the information, now prove you're as good as they say and use it. _It will only be much, much later, after the operation, when I'm sitting alone at home trying to distract myself with a book on which I can't concentrate, that it will dawn on me that those self-same words could have been used to describe me, and Ruth knows it.

In fact, it isn't her information but Tariq's technical genius that enables us to pinpoint Chatterjee. It also saves Ashok Verkal's life when he comes within seconds of being unmasked by Dhillon at the gym. Both Harry and I were reluctant to let Tariq out into the field again; it isn't his job, and I can only remember Harry ever sending Malcolm out once. Tariq is young, inexperienced, _and_ Muslim. Even as I think it, I realize that Ashok Verkal is all those things too, and we're using _him._ I can feel the waves of disapproval coming off Ruth as I order Tariq to go with Lucas, but I don't comment. Harry's far too tolerant of Ruth's priggishness, in my opinion. If she can't cope with being associated with – and therefore, God forbid, tainted by - some of our decisions, then intellectual brilliance or not, she's in the wrong job in the wrong place. She should try a few days in _his_ position. Or mine.

It's true that Tariq _is_ affected by the death of the other young man, the one we had to set up to save Ashok's life. When he comes back to the Grid he's visibly shaken by what happened and by his role in it. I sympathize – for obvious reasons nobody is going to understand how he feels better than I do – but, as usual, I can't convey that sympathy in words. Anyway, he could read it as weakness, and I dare not risk that. So it's Lucas who quietly sends him off to get some rest and takes over babysitting the Sanskrit translator.

I don't have a lot of faith in the man; he looks like he just left the local ashram, and his whimsical comments about the beauty and esoteric subtleties of the language seem a shade out of place in the circumstances. He clearly isn't impressed with my impatient demands for more specific translation either, although I see a flash of admiration for Lucas's recognition of the verses he quotes at us. I just feel exasperation. _Eight-year reading sabbatical, my eye._ Between him and Ruth sometimes - they'll still be quoting books at each other when our devout Hindu and Muslim brothers are re-enacting the bloody Civil War in the middle of Birmingham.

Fortunately, Mr Sanskrit – I never do know his proper name – manages to produce a useful translation of Chatterjee's call to Dhillon when it finally comes, and Tariq triangulates it close enough for us to be able to go and get the bastard. Harry's still issuing orders about picking Chatterjee up when I sprint in from the conference room and snatch my car keys from my desk.

_He's mine._ I throw the words over my shoulder at him as I run from the Grid. There's no way I'm going to let him send Lucas this time. On my way, Ruth's words '_nothing to live for and nothing to lose_' still echoing in my mind, I stop to pick our ISI friend, Dickie, up from his office as extra insurance. That isn't part of my orders, but for the first time in many years, I feel the need for it.

We find Chatterjee in a condemned building, propped up against one of the pillars. For a second I think we're too late and he's already died on us, but a quick jab with his own tiger claw brings him round. He might be weak and in pain, but he's clearly got no intention of answering my questions, and within a couple of minutes I realize why. This isn't politics – or not _just_ politics. Or race or religion. Squatting there in the dust, I recall the details of Chatterjee's biography and what the translator said about Bengalis. This is revenge for what happened to his family in 1947, for what they lost as a result of the British Partition of India. Revenge – the most powerful motive there is. I should know. And I know I'm going to need Dickie.

I call him over and tell Chatterjee that if he doesn't tell me the location of the second attack – now the one Dhillon and his people are heading for – and where the second group he controls is hiding out I'll hand him over to the ISI for transfer to jail in Islamabad. I see by the way his eyes start sliding from me to the Pakistani that he knows what that means. Not a relatively comfortable cell in Belmarsh and a prison staff bound hand and foot by law and regulation to treat you decently, but a man whose officer he murdered, and rules over which Dickie can ride roughshod with complete impunity. Just in case he needs a reminder, I lean closer and hiss it into his face.

_Tell me where they are. Tell me the location of the second attack and I'll leave you to die peacefully. If you don't, I'll make absolutely bloody sure you live._

When he tells me I phone Lucas immediately and then instruct our people to take Chatterjee away.

_You said he was ours. _I look into the smooth, urbane face of Dickie, now revealing just a slight, courteous frown.

_Yeah, well, I lied. It goes with the territory. _The last time I said those words I was racked with guilt, close to tears, and they almost tore me apart. Now I don't care. I'm sick and tired of these damn people and their games played in other people's backyards with complete disregard for the sodding consequences. So I give him my most insincere smile. _Oh, and next time you get wind of something like this, make sure you've got Harry Pearce on speed-dial._ I walk off in Chatterjee's wake. Dickie can find his own way back to his lair.

I want to go after Lucas, but Harry orders me back to the Grid. This time I run the risk of arguing, but he explodes that if I'm not back within twenty minutes he'll suspend me with immediate effect, crisis or no crisis. I know he means it and I can't bluff him, not this time, so I head back, praying that Lucas can handle the situation until CO19 can get to him.

The next hour becomes one of the most tense I can ever remember spending on the Grid – not excepting the market bombings that I had to deal with single-handed just after I took over as Section Chief. I get there at almost the same moment as CO19 reach the Muslim girls' college that is Dhillon's target. Lucas is still _en_ _route,_ so Harry is speaking to the Home Secretary, seeking the green light for them to go in. He has the call on loudspeaker, and I stare at it in disbelief as we listen to the conversation.

_Home Secretary, the CO19 commander claims he doesn't have orders to free the students. I need you to authorize him to go in. _Harry's tapping his pencil on the desk and I can see a vein throbbing in his temple.

_I was the one who stood them down, Harry. We're going to negotiate. We can't take the risk of another Beslan. _

_Bloody hell._ I lean over Tariq's shoulder and check on Lucas's progress. His tracker shows he's three minutes from his destination. Harry glances over at me and I give him a quick nod in response.

_Home Secretary. _I can sense the effort he has to make to keep his tone reasonable._ These people are armed and very unstable. Negotiation won't work. Not in this case._

_We have to try, Harry. We have a responsibility to keep order in the rest of the country. If we use force and any of those girls are hurt – or worse, killed – as a result of British government action it will be impossible to contain the reaction in the Asian communities. _

I bite my lip hard to prevent myself from leaning towards the loudspeaker and shouting at him to stop playing politics. Harry's face wrinkles in disgust and he slams his hand down so hard on the desk that Ruth almost jumps out of her chair.

_You have a man there. _Lawrence's words are a statement rather than a question. Harry, obviously with great reluctance, grunts a '_yes'_. Ruth is gazing at him wide-eyed in a way that reminds me painfully of Jo. Tariq, bless him, is still riveted to the computer screen, relaying information to Lucas. He glances up at me.

"He's there, Ros."

I mouth a silent '_hold on'_ and look towards Harry.

_Tell him to wait until negotiators arrive._

Harry glares at the desk speaker and then shoots a look at me.

_Of course, Home Secretary. _He disconnects the call by throwing the phone back at the handset. It misses by a good six inches. Then he calls Lucas on his mobile and tells him to stand off. I don't know which of us is more shocked when Lucas refuses to accept his instructions and goes in alone. _I gave him my word._ The words make me turn icy cold. He's thinking emotionally, exactly as I did over Baisley. I fold my arms tightly to stop myself visibly shivering and close my eyes. _God, please, no. Not another member of my team. Please. Not again. Not when it should be __my__ neck on the line. _With the mayhem of shouting between Ashok and Dhillon at its peak, I find myself whispering '_take the shot, Lucas'_ under my breath and open my eyes to see Ruth Evershed watching me. She veils her gaze quickly, but I've seen the hostility in her eyes and I could write down the words she hasn't needed to speak. _Like you did. Kill him without a second thought, like you did Jo. _Suddenly all the emotions I've been fighting so hard to suppress are back, stronger and more painful than ever.

I turn away from her just as heavy breathing and muffled crying replaces the shouts and screams pouring from Tariq's speaker. For a moment Harry and I just stare at each other, and Tariq and Ruth both stare at us. Then Lucas's voice, gravelly and taut with tension, comes out of the speaker. _It's over, Ros._

My relief at the words is so overwhelming that for a moment I'm afraid I'm going to faint._ He's all right. No more guilt. Thank God._ Tears fill my eyes. Somehow, I keep control.

"Thank you, Lucas." Ruth and Tariq are babbling excitedly at each other. I feel Harry's hand in the small of my back.

"Go home and get some rest, Ros. Well done."

I manage a smile. It's a stiff drink I need, not rest. "What about Lawrence?"

Harry's face darkens. "Tomorrow, Ros. We'll talk to him tomorrow." There's a barely-contained rage in his tone, and I don't envy Andrew Lawrence.

"And Lucas?" I know I should wait and debrief him, but suddenly I'm so drained of energy that the question's half-hearted.

"I'll see him in." He rubs my shoulders comfortingly. "Go on, Ros. You've earned it. There'll be no Hindu-Muslim bloodbath on the streets tonight. It's over."

Neither he nor I know that it's only just beginning.

**_Thank you for reading. Reviews always welcome!_**


	7. Chapter 7

I go home as Harry told me to, but getting some rest seems to be beyond me. I'm still strung out with post-op tension, and try as I might, I can't relax. I apply the tried-and-tested remedy of a good book and some of my favourite music in the background, but I can't really concentrate on the former or hear the latter, so in the end I abandon both and go upstairs to soak in the bath instead. I think it's that unspoken rebuke from Ruth that's unsettled me. Suddenly, I feel as if all the efforts I've put into mastering my feelings about Jo's death have been invalidated by that one judgmental look. It's so easy for Ruth to pass sentence on me from that desk; she will never have more than a distant, indirect connection to a life-and-death decision. And in this case, she's wrong, because I _wasn't_ urging Lucas to kill; I was panic-stricken that we might lose him too if he couldn't control the situation. I desperately want to be angry with her but the anger won't come. I know that Ruth's attitude to me is dictated by her quite genuine grief about Jo and her equally genuine horror at what I did. And I don't feel I have the right to resent her for that. So all I _can_ feel is the return of that bleak, despairing, agonizingly familiar pain I seem to have been fighting – apparently in vain - for so long.

In the end I give up and go to bed. I'm not expecting to have a good night, and I don't. For the first time in a while I cry myself to sleep, and by dawn I'm up again with black coffee and this diary. I don't know if it will do any good, but I'll try anything that might. Because this crisis isn't over - we all know that. Nightingale's still out there, somewhere. Harry and I both sense this is only the prologue to whatever they're planning, and I can't let myself be so badly affected by one disapproving look from Ruth Evershed. Harry deserves better than this from me. I owe him the support and strength he's always given me, and whatever it takes, until this situation is resolved, that's what I'm going to give him.

I start by accompanying him to our meeting with the Home Secretary. Harry is still in a black mood over Lawrence's refusal to authorize the use of CO19 at the school, and he keeps up a steady, low-intensity muttering about the general idiocy of politicians all the way to Whitehall. It's not that I don't agree with him – I do, God knows, and my own track-record of getting on with our political lords and masters is nothing to write home about - but I still make an effort to pour a little oil on troubled waters as he storms down the corridors. Not my strongest point, of course. When Harry snaps my head off in response, I belatedly decide that discretion is the better part of valour and follow him into the office intending, for the time being, to keep my eyes peeled and my mouth shut.

I don't know quite what to make of Andrew Lawrence, although I can see why Harry doesn't like him. He had a lot of time for the previous incumbent, Nicholas Blake, whom he used to describe as '_the last gentleman in politics_', and Lawrence is about as different from Blake as a man could be. For a start, he's about fifteen years younger, and he greets us in shirtsleeves, without a tie. I see Harry's nose wrinkle in distaste at what I imagine is the last straw – a bicycle propped up in a corner against the bookcase. My amusement is short-lived, however, because he's still bristling, and the conversation between him and the Home Secretary is short, tetchy and tense. I have to give the other man credit; he remains polite and patient as he tries to explain his side of the argument, and that isn't easy with Harry gunning for you. When Harry rises, clearly considering that the discussion has already outlived its usefulness, Lawrence stops him.

"So we're certain this was an isolated incident, nothing to do with Nightingale?"

"We'll continue to monitor the situation, Home Secretary," Harry answers smoothly, 'but at this stage we can see no link."

There's a fractional pause before Lawrence nods. "Good. Keep me posted." He shakes Harry's hand and turns to me. "Miss Myers. It's been a pleasure to meet you."

"And you, Home Secretary." The courtesy is automatic. I follow Harry out of the room, and it isn't until we're walking along the Embankment back to Millbank that I feel able to ask him why he lied. Harry doesn't answer immediately, and my unease deepens. There's an obvious answer to my question and I supply it. "You think he's Nightingale's?"

Harry shrugs. "Somebody got rid of Blake very neatly."

I gaze across the river. The sunlight's glittering on the water, and it even looks clean. _Bit like politics. Clean and sparkling on the surface. God alone knows what muck is lurking around underneath._

"Not trusting the boss?" I pick my words carefully. "Not a position we can sustain for long, Harry."

"Then we need to prove he's worthy of trust," Harry says dryly. "We'll discuss it when we get back to the Grid."

_Famous last words. _When Harry sent me home yesterday Tariq was still trying to reconstitute the information from Sarah Caulfield's memory-stick; he's retrieved some, but a lot of it was corrupted by the protection systems she'd put on. When we get back to the Grid he's still working on it, but with one eye on the news feed, which is broadcasting an item about the still worsening tension between India and Pakistan. If they don't sort themselves out we'll have a dozen Dhillons to deal with. I'm about to ask Tariq whether he's making any progress when he suddenly points at the screen.

"That's him!"

I look at a close-up of the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff, General Ali; a bloody hothead if ever there was one.

"Who, Tariq?"

"General Ali." He swings round to face us. "That's him on Sarah's memory stick."

"He's Nightingale. Ali." Harry voices the words just as the same realization hits me.

"They're trying to push India and Pakistan into conflict." Lucas is staring in horror at the screen. The BBC is now helpfully reminding us what _kind _of conflict by showing the recent test launch of an Indian medium-range missile.

"Or nuclear war." For a minute I don't realize my own voice has said the words until I see both Lucas and Harry staring at me.

"Meeting room." Harry's words, which must have heralded the start of a hundred different crises in this room, come out through gritted teeth. "_Now_!"

From there, things spiral up so fast that there's barely time to think. Pakistan seizes and detains an Indian submarine that it claims had violated its territorial waters, and all hell breaks loose – so far, thank God, only in diplomatic terms. Special Branch is going ballistic, and at the same time driving us nuts, trying to track and monitor the many rabble-rousers spread across the country who might take advantage of the situation. The last thing any of us need is to have to take time out to go and smooth the increasingly ruffled feathers of the politicians, but the summons to the Home Office comes without the option.

The Home Secretary greets both of us with a smile, although he's clearly uncomfortable in Harry's presence. The initial atmosphere between them isn't improved by the fact that when we're shown in he's just finishing up his latest Twitter update. God knows there isn't too much to laugh about at the moment, but I choke one back at the look on Harry's face when Lawrence explains, somewhat awkwardly, that '_they like us to seem modern'._ Harry does modern the way Osama Bin Laden does religious tolerance.

As we expected, the government is convening a conference between the Indians and Pakistanis here in London to try and defuse the crisis. Harry's eyebrows almost rise off his forehead when Lawrence informs us that the PM's been 'on the blower' to the American president and that as a result our American cousins will be co-sponsoring it. I feel my heart sink too. It's the 'co' bit that we know will cause the problem. Harry's already told me that Russell Price, the CIA's top man in Europe, is here, and I don't have to hold a PhD in international diplomacy to guess that he isn't going to take a tactful back seat.

Fortunately, the Home Secretary does have some _good _news – or at least some unexpected news. It turns out that he knows the President of Pakistan; went to Cambridge with him. I don't usually have a lot of time for the Old Boy Network, and I know Harry doesn't, because half the time it causes a lot more problems for the Service than it solves, but now I think both of us are prepared to give it a cautious welcome. In these circumstances, _any _informal, discreet leverage we can use to influence the situation has to be helpful. So both of us listen in as respectful a silence as we can manage to the concluding little pep talk he gives us about knowing he can rely on us and about how the security for the conference couldn't be in better hands. _No pressure, then._

"What annoyed you most?" I ask Harry as we hurry down the opulent marble staircase. "Twitter, or the fact he went to Cambridge?"

He glances at me, and gives a wry smile. "Actually, it was when he said the PM got on the blower to the Americans."

"Of course." I smile too.

"Still, he's right about one thing." I look at him enquiringly as we fasten our seat belts in the car. "The security _couldn't_ be in better hands." He looks keenly at me. "And I'm not talking about Price."

"Harry, you old flatterer. You'll make me blush." I try to make it sound as flippant as I can, but I _am_ embarrassed. I'm not used to open compliments.

"I'm not flattering you, Ros." He sounds and looks unusually serious. "I know how hard the last few months have been for you. You've been extraordinarily brave, and I want you to know how grateful I am for it."

I wish I had the words to tell _him_ how grateful I am for everything that he's done for me over those same few months: for his trust and support, for the concern and affection he's showed me, and for being a friend when I so desperately needed one and had no one else to turn to. Instead I mumble something about just doing my job, but he won't be put off.

"I wish everyone just did their job the way you do." He starts the engine. "Blake had a point about cloning you. Two or three carbon copies and I could retire from the Service with a clear conscience and vegetate peacefully in the countryside somewhere."

I smile awkwardly, hoping I'm not as red in the face with embarrassment as I think I might be.

"Right." Harry swings out into Whitehall. "Let's get back to the Grid and start some planning. Before that twit starts twittering about anything else."

As it happens, the twittering starts as soon as we get back to the Grid, but this time it's coming from Ruth. She's at Harry's side, muttering rapidly in his ear, the instant we walk back through the pods, and her sideways glances make it crystal clear she'd rather I wasn't there. I stand my ground, following her and Harry into the briefing room, where Lucas is already poring over some photographs. Harry sheds his coat.

"All right, Ruth. Run through it again, please."

I listen intently as Ruth gives us the details of every suspected member of the Nightingale group we've so far managed to identify: Sarah Caulfield, General Azeem Ali, Andrew Lawrence (possibly) and an elusive German billionaire called Hans Lindemann, who's known to have attended that damned Basle meeting, and could well be providing the financing. Harry glares at the four photographs on the screen.

"We still don't know _why _Sarah Caulfield's involved with them," he says, tapping his fingers on the table in frustration.

"Money?" I suggest. Call me a cynic, but the answer seems obvious to me. Sarah Caulfield never struck me as the kind who'd risk her neck for a principle.

"It's not money." Lucas shakes his head decisively. I want to ask him how the hell he can be so sure he understands her motives when he seems to have been thoroughly hoodwinked by the woman in every other respect, but I bite the words back. Harry seems to have grown more confident of Lucas's reliability, and I decide to keep my own doubts about it – which are growing with every minute – to myself.

Harry seems on the point of speaking again when Tariq skids round the corner and erupts into the room.

"Harry, it's Lawrence!"

"_What's_ Lawrence?" Harry snaps, glaring at him.

"His holidays. His Easter holidays." Tariq's out of breath, and sounds flustered, but there's none of the timid uncertainty that Harry's reaction would have induced in him just a few short months ago. "Harry, he spent them at Lindemann's villa in Tuscany."

For a moment Harry's face turns to stone.

"Doesn't look good for Lawrence," I murmur. Everyone's been looking anxiously at everyone else, but now they all, including Harry, turn to look at me.

"No." I can almost see Harry thinking, but before he can speak, Ruth interrupts.

"Harry, I – I - I think we should be – er – careful. This – doesn't mean Lawrence _is _guilty of anything. It – it just means he _might _be. I mean I - I – um – I know what it looks like, but he – er – it could just be coincidence, we – well…"

She trails off, partly, I think, due to the snort of disbelief I've been unable to silence. Harry glances from her to me.

"Tariq, keep digging into him. And keep working on that memory stick. Ruth, you too." The young man shoots a glance at me, and I nod confirmation. Ruth, I notice, pointedly avoids meeting my eyes. "Lucas, Ros - I want surveillance on Hans Lindemann's residence – bugs, phone taps, e-mail intercepts. Now. Get moving." He's up on his feet and striding from the office as Lucas and I reach for our coats and head for the pods.

I'm relieved to be back in the field and _doing _something, rather than sitting around analysing the situation, although the feeling of apprehension that's been building in me for the last week or so goes with me. I know that part of it is due to my unease about Lucas. He's been tense, which is very unlike him, ever since his confrontation with Sarah. I really don't want to worry Harry by sharing my concern with him so I decide to see if I can get Lucas to relax a bit now we're working away from the goldfish bowl of the Grid.

Lindemann's house looks as if it's been unused for some time – clearly, if Herr Lindemann's in town, he's either not been staying here recently, or he's been doing so _very_ discreetly. Lucas goes in to plant the bugs, and when he asks for a test call, I tell him my perfume's made from the anal glands of cats – a little nugget I'd actually have preferred not to know, but read in my paper over breakfast this morning. I'm not squeamish, but it took me back to when I first met Adam, and that business when my perfume turned out to be the same as his wife's. Strange, the things that remind you. I still can't see a bottle of it on sale without being overwhelmed by memories of him. The fact serves its purpose now, however, because it makes Lucas laugh. To my amusement he seems to know a lot more about the anal glands of the civet than I do. The smile in his voice is audible, and it reassures me – until I hear his name spoken by _another_ voice, one I had dearly hoped never to hear again.

I race for the house, avoiding the front door, and break in through the back. I can still hear Caulfield through the feed from Lucas's wire. He doesn't seem to be saying anything at all as I run for the hall. _Why the hell isn't he detaining the bloody bitch?_ It's like a mongoose and a snake; he seems to lose the ability to think straight, never mind move, whenever he's faced with her. I know he's armed, although I'm not, but it looks like it's going to be up to me to capture Sarah Caulfield.

To my unbridled rage, I fail to do so, although I _wouldn't_ have if Lucas had disabled her as I shout at him to do as I'm struggling with her on the floor, trying to pin her down. Instead, he stands there like Lot's bloody wife, pointing the gun at us both but not attempting to fire. By the time I'm up on my feet again Sarah's gone, and all I have to show for our little wrestling match is several deep scratches on my face and a split and bleeding lip. I'm absolutely _livid_ with Lucas, and I still am when I challenge him later on. She was the only certain link to Nightingale whom we had any hope of getting our hands on, and thanks to him, we've lost her. If we weren't working at full stretch and badly under-staffed, I'd pull him off the operation right now.

_Back off, Ros,_ is the only reaction I get. He sounds defensive, but not intimidated, not even by the filthy look I give him. _I didn't have a clear shot._ _I couldn't be sure – _he trails off.

_Of not hitting you._ I silently finish the sentence for him. I want to spit '_So bloody what_?_' _ If I'd had to be sure of a clear shot in Hampstead twenty-odd people, probably including him, the useless wimp, would be playing their harps by now.

_I'll find her._ He turns as Tariq comes in and instructs him to start trawling through hotels and B&Bs, looking for any of her Presidential aliases.

_Barbados. Bolivia. I'll meet you there. _I snort in disgust, and then realize from the look on his face that I've been muttering Caulfield's words aloud.

_Back off,_ he repeats. _We'll find her and we'll use her. She's no use to us dead._

This time I detect a very slight note of appeal in his voice. _God, he really did fall for her. _Again the memories surge. _Just like Adam did with that bloody Scherezade at the Iranian Embassy. Even when she tried to drown him he still wanted her. What is it with men, that they only ever seem to go for two types of female – lethal or lapdog?_

I glance up. I could tear Lucas off a strip for his idiocy – God knows he's earned it – but it won't help. I'll make a report once we've got the conference over. Until then, much as it goes against the grain, I need to bolster his confidence, not smash it to smithereens.

"Come on." I get up. "We need to go and meet our pals from the Land of the Free." I put my jacket on. "If I were you, I'd take Barbados."

"Eh?" He looks completely bewildered, and I allow myself a tight smile. "Bolivia's run by Commies in ponchos, and it doesn't have a seaside." I see an uncertain half-smile flicker across his face as I pass him on my way to the exit. Myers 1 North 0. Let's get this show on the road.

_**Thanks for reading. Reviews always welcome!**_


	8. Chapter 8

I'm curled up in bed with a glass of wine watching the late news the following evening when the phone rings. The Indians and Pakistanis are still trading increasingly heated insults, but so far the war is still only a war of words. The delegations are flying in tomorrow, and we've spent hours checking and re-checking the arrangements, reviewing security for the VIPs and trying to co-ordinate the whole thing with our friends from across the pond. I've had an absolutely blinding headache since lunchtime but my mind is still in overdrive and I doubt I'm going to get much sleep. Irritably, I mute the TV and reach for the phone.

"Myers."

"Ros, it's Harry. Where are you?"

"In bed." I ask the unavoidable question, although I don't really want to know the answer. "Something wrong?"

"Not really." He sounds as weary as I feel. "I was thinking about the Home Secretary."

I can't resist gently teasing him. "Ruth will be disappointed. I didn't think he was your type, Harry."

"I was hoping he was more yours," Harry answers wryly.

Almost despite myself, I smile. "Not on that bicycle. Nothing less than a Mercedes XL, Harry. "

A grunt comes down the line. "Would you make an exception? Purely operational, of course."

_Operational? What the hell's he talking about? _ I take a sip of wine and ask him.

"I've been thinking about what Ruth said. She has a point, Ros; we shouldn't be automatically jumping to the conclusion that Lawrence is mixed up with Nightingale only because of where he spends his holidays. She's right; he could just as well be innocent, but we have to find out for sure."

_God, that's all we need. Harry's decisions being influenced by Goody Two Shoes._

"Ros?" he prompts.

"All right." I'm treading carefully; Harry's never been able to see any wrong in Ruth, and I know from experience that he'll react negatively to any criticism of her. On the other hand, she's a very good analyst and her instincts are usually sound, so she could easily be right. Whatever her personal antipathy towards me, it would be foolish and arrogant of me to dismiss her opinion. "How do you think we should go about it?"

"That's why I rang you." He was obviously expecting me to explode, and now that I haven't, he's speaking more briskly. "I want you to go and see Lawrence again."

"Alone?" I enquire, surprised.

"Yes." Harry sniffs. "He's more likely to relax with you than me. I want you to take a memory stick with you and give it to him. He knows President Madrassah. Tell him the stick contains codes through which he can communicate securely with us, and we'd appreciate knowing how Madrassah's thinking, what kind of pressure he's under, which way he's likely to react to the pressure, etc etc. If he passes that stick on to anyone else - "

"Nightingale, for example," I supply.

"Then we'll know," Harry agrees. "And if necessary we can use him." A slight pause. "Or neutralize him."

_You'd better not tell Ruth about that last bit._ I stare up at the ceiling and notice a couple of cobwebs that bear testimony to just how little housework I've bothered to do over the last few months. "What's on the stick?"

"Tariq's programmed it with gibberish. If Nightingale do get hold of it they'll waste a lot of time trying to identify codes that aren't there." Harry clears his throat. "Get him to talk, Ros. Politicians like to talk. See if he lets anything interesting slip. Use your charm on him."

"_My_ charm?" I feel uncomfortable at how bitter I sound. "Is the situation so desperate that we have to rely on that, Harry?"

"Ros." There's a mild reproach in the word. "You had Nicholas Blake eating out of your hand." A pause. "Lawrence is expecting you tomorrow morning."

_Oh, so you don't have any doubts I'll do it, then?_ Of course he doesn't. Why should he? I've done countless honey-trap operations for him, run the gamut from innocent flirting to full-scale seduction. Ironic, really. Jo was always the more obvious candidate. She was younger than me, had the looks and the figure, but she could never act a sustained part with any conviction. She didn't always have the nerve to go all the way if it became necessary, either. So Harry relies on me. And I've never objected, so he has no idea how sordid and vulgar I've sometimes found them, and how soiled and corrupt they've often made me feel.

"Ros." To my surprise, Harry's voice is apologetic. "I wish I didn't have to do it this way, but he's wary of me. Whatever you say, there's - interest, shall we say – when he looks at you. I'm not asking you to actually - " He stops and sighs. "Every time this happens I still expect Malcolm to march into my office looking disapproving."

"Malcolm?" Now I wonder if he hasn't had a drink this evening as well. Several, in fact.

"Yes. He used to give me hell about sending you out on honey-traps. He said it was degrading and hurtful, and just because you never refused to go I shouldn't assume they didn't affect you."

"_Malcolm_ said that?" I can't believe my ears.

"Yes. And quite a bit more, actually." Harry pauses. "He was always very fond of you, Ros. Still is. And he's right. I know that. I feel guilty as hell every time, but - " I can hear the shrug at the end of the sentence.

"You don't need to. I read the job description." I'm still stunned by what he's said about Malcolm, and despite myself I'm touched by it. Malcolm hated me when I first joined Section D – he held me partly to blame for the murder of his friend Colin at the hands of my father's co-conspirators – but he gradually came round, and I think he trusted me in the end. I've never forgotten how good he was about my needle phobia. Most people would have laughed at me, but he was so patient. I don't suppose anyone will believe me, but I've really missed him since he retired. He was familiar. Dependable. Kind. And I don't think he would have blamed me about Jo. He would have understood. Yet for all that, the last words we exchanged on the Grid were heated, and on my side, spiteful and uncalled-for. For that – and for so many other things – I wish I could turn the clock back.

"Right." Harry still sounds uneasy. "You'll be all right, then?"

Somehow, this conversation has turned uncomfortably emotional, and I need to get things back onto a more even keel. "Assuming he doesn't try to ravish me between Twitter updates." No answer. "Of course I'll be all right. I'm not a child, Harry. You've never been concerned before. Trust me."

"Ros, it isn't a question of trust." There's an awful sadness in his voice now. "You've been through so much already, and it seems all I ever do is double your load." I can hear him hesitating. "It wouldn't be so bad if you weren't so alone with it all. I just wish I could help."

I swallow hard. Since my breakdown at Jo's graveside at the end of the Baisley case, I've thought I've been putting a better face on things. I've had the impression Harry's been less worried about me than he was, and so I've allowed myself to think that I've successfully pulled the wool over his eyes. But that comment about my being alone … he knows. Somehow, despite all my attempts to keep it from him, he knows Jo still haunts me. He knows how lonely I am without Adam, and how much I still miss my father. I wonder if he also knows that his friendship and care are the only things that help me to cope with it all and to keep the professional, public boot-face of Ros Myers intact.

"Harry, I don't need help. I'm fine." The words come out with more harshness than I intend, but perhaps it's just as well. With luck he'll take it for impatience. "And I know we're short of staff, but I'm not alone, for God's sake."

That isn't what Harry meant, of course. I know it, and I'm aware that he'll know I'm lying.

"No. No … but if you ever feel that you are, Ros, you will remember where the office door is, won't you? You know it's always open."

"I know. Thank you, Harry." I have no intention of taking him up on it. I _dare_ not. And in a way I don't need to. Just knowing that he's there – at my shoulder or on the end of a telephone line – gives me the strength I need.

"Don't thank me. Just remember. See you tomorrow, Ros. We're going to stop these bastards, you and I."

He's gone before I can say anything. I switch off the television and lie there for a few moments in the lamplight, thinking. When I first joined Six, I made a will. I was very young, just a few months short of my twenty-second birthday at the time, but it's obligatory in the Service for all new officers. I've never updated it, which means that my only bequests are to my parents, and to Philip and Sally - in other words, to people who no longer acknowledge my existence. Even when I returned from Russia and it was deemed safe for my family to be told that my 'funeral' had been a fake their attitude didn't change. My mother's put the phone down on me so many times I've given up counting. And the last time I tried to visit my father in Wormwood Scrubs I didn't even get past visitors' security before I was turned away.

I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. Since I came to MI-5, Harry Pearce has been more of a father to me than my own. Unlike my own, he forgave me when I betrayed him, because he understood. My fellow officers in Section D are the only real family I'll ever have. I know that now.

_You know it, Ros. But they don't._

No, they don't, neither Harry nor my officers. I push the duvet back and sit up. Suddenly, it isn't enough just for _me_ to be aware how important they are to me. I need them to know, too. Especially Harry. I know I'll never be able to tell him to his face. I never told Adam I loved him. I tried to show him, but I could never actually say so, and I'll never be able to forgive myself for not saying the words to him before he died, for not making my feelings clear to him. I don't want to do something like that again. I want Harry to know how I feel. I _need_ him to know, because although I haven't been back to Jo's grave since the day I went to pieces there, the feeling that my own time to join her is getting closer all the time hasn't left me. Pressure at work has pushed it from the forefront of my mind, but it's still there. I don't feel fear or apprehension … resignation, possibly. _Almost_ acceptance. But it won't be full acceptance until I'm at peace with myself. Much as it hurts, I know that I probably won't be able to say a proper goodbye to Harry. But I do need to know I've done everything in my power to ease the pain that I know my death will inflict on him. _Then_ I can fully resign myself to it.

No, I can't say the words. Words like this I can't even say to the Dictaphone. But perhaps I can follow the psychologist's early advice to me. Put it down on paper. I get out of bed, pull on my dressing gown, and head downstairs to my desk.

I know Harry's sending me to see the Home Secretary at least partly because he wants my opinion on whether he really is involved with Nightingale or not. I don't relish having to give it - after all, none of my assessments have ever singled out people skills as being one of my strong points – but I can't let him down, so I go to the Home Office determined to do my best. When I hand him the memory stick as per instructions, Lawrence examines it and then scrutinizes me as if he isn't quite sure which he distrusts most. I expect him to challenge what I've told him, not least because to me the explanation sounds so appallingly flimsy, but when he speaks, I have to admit that he catches me right off the bat.

"He doesn't like me, does he? Sir Harry."

I wipe the surprise off my face quickly. "I don't think it's a question of liking, Home Secretary."

He smiles slightly. "He reminds me of my father. The more I tried to please him when I was a kid, the less I could."

For a horrible moment I have absolutely no idea what to say. This is meant to be a professional meeting, not a personal chat. Besides, fathers – in _any_ shape, size or form - are a taboo subject for me. I don't want to discuss Harry with him, either. My stomach knots as I suddenly wonder if he knows that my own father tried to murder his predecessor and came damn close to succeeding. My mouth is dry, but I manage – I hope – to smile back.

"Perhaps you shouldn't try so hard, Home Secretary."

"Perhaps not." He turns the memory stick over thoughtfully in his hands. "Maybe it's time we put the grumpy old men out to grass. Let's give you his job. Push you through the glass ceiling."

_Are you flirting with me? _I can feel my temper rising at the idea that he thinks I'm just another dizzy blonde turned on by the mythical aphrodisiac of power, but I check it just in time. After all, Harry wanted me to let him talk, the better to size him up. So I lower my eyes as coquettishly as I can manage.

"I don't think so, thank you, Home Secretary. I'm not really a desk person."

He pulls a face, perches on the edge of his desk and offers me one of two small bottles of organic orange juice standing on it. I shake my head and try to hide my amusement at the thought of what Harry will say if he ever offers him one. He and Nicholas Blake always discussed the latest crisis over single-malt whisky.

"So, Miss Myers - Rebecca, is it?"

"Rosalind." I wonder if that was deliberate.

"Rosalind." He raises an eyebrow. "If you don't mind?"

I shake my head. He's certainly much more relaxed without Harry here. I wonder if that's because Harry's obvious mistrust of him _does_ make him ill at ease or whether he has something to hide that he's afraid Harry will expose. He isn't without charm. In an odd way, there's something quite appealing about him.

"If President Madrassah does tell me anything that needs to be conveyed to you, will this," he holds up the memory stick, "enable me to contact Sir Harry directly?"

"No, me. I'll come immediately. We prefer to use … back channels for this, Home Secretary." I get to my feet.

"A back channel?" He stands up too, and there's an almost mischievous smile on his face. "Is that what I am? I was hoping for something a bit … sexier than that."

_Yes, he's flirting. _I don't know whether to be offended or flattered. On the one hand, I'm not an impressionable bloody teenager; on the other, I'm a woman, with a woman's susceptibilities. I remind myself quickly that he could have all kinds of ulterior motives. _Exactly like Jack Colville did._

"I'll try to think of something." I shake his hand. "Thank you, Home Secretary. Goodbye."

I'm puzzling him out all the way back to Thames House. It's not going to be much help to Harry if all I can tell him is that I can't read the bloody man, but I'm really not sure whether he's innocent or not. And I'm not sure that I'm not letting my personal feelings influence my judgement, either. I don't want to admit it, but that comment about his father struck a chord. I worshipped my own father when I was young, and I was never satisfied with anything I did unless he was. I would have done anything to please him. I would deny it to anyone foolish enough to ask, but even after what he did, and even after all these years, I still miss him desperately.

I give myself a mental kick on the shins for letting myself wallow. I can't let any of that influence me. If Lawrence has talked to Nicholas Blake, he quite possibly knows about my father's involvement in the _coup_ attempt, and he could easily use that knowledge to manipulate me. And if he _is _a member of Nightingale, we'll have to do something to neutralize the danger he represents.

I'm still deep in thought when I reach the Grid, and it takes me a second to realize that the place is in absolute chaos. Ruth is snivelling at her desk, being plied with tea and tissues by one of the junior officers, and Lucas and Tariq are hunched over the computers in the video suite.

"Ros." It's Harry, behind me. I turn hurriedly.

"What the hell happened?" I demand, jerking my thumb towards Ruth.

Swiftly, he tells me, but halfway through, he's interrupted by Tariq and Lucas shouting my name in stereo. We both dash across the corridor.

"I've found Caulfield!" There's a triumphant gleam in Tariq's eyes.

"Where?" Harry snaps, shooting a glance at Lucas as he does so.

"In the Regency Hotel," Tariq answers, pointing at a freeze-frame CCTV image on his computer screen.

"Venezuela, my arse," I mutter. Harry fixes me with his most po-faced expression.

"I beg your pardon, Rosalind?"

"That arrogant so-and-so, when Lucas and I spoke to him. Russell Price. He had the sodding gall to try and fob us off by telling me he'd had reports she was in Venezuela working for Hugo Chaves."

Despite the tension, I see Lucas and Harry exchange an amused look. Even Tariq is trying not to grin_._ All three know I've been waiting for the opportunity to cut that bombastic cowboy down to size.

Harry claps Tariq approvingly on the back and turns to me. "Do whatever you need to, Ros. Bring her in. You have_ carte blanche_." He shoots a glance at Lucas as if to make sure he's understood the last four words. Lucas's idiocy in not opening fire on her at our last encounter won't be allowed a repeat performance this time.

I nod, and, followed by Lucas, head swiftly for the pods.

_**Thanks for reading. Reviews always welcome!**_


	9. Chapter 9

I half-expect Lucas to protest when I not only order him to contact Caulfield, but also tell him exactly how to do it, but he just nods. I don't like him being so subdued, but when I ask him point-blank whether he's sure he can do this he looks at me as if I've just crawled out of the nearest sewer.

"Not all of us can just pull a trigger without thinking, Ros. That doesn't make me incompetent. Just human."

That hits me exactly where he intended it to, right below the belt. Suddenly I can see Jo again lying crumpled at my feet, and I sense the three junior officers I've brought with us looking covertly at one another. I blink the image of Jo away, order them to their positions with as filthy a glare as I can summon up, and take up my own as Lucas rings Sarah.

I can't pretend I don't feel intense satisfaction when I shoot her in the leg. Lucas should be pleased; she's only winged, although the bloody fuss she makes you'd think she needs the Last Rites. I order the others to get her to hospital. Frankly, I'd prefer to hand her straight to Russell Price, or better yet, Harry, and let her take her chances, but when I check with Harry he says to send her to the hospital and have Lucas stay with her. Reluctantly, I agree. We need security on her anyway, and once they've patched her up, Lucas may have more chance of getting her to talk than I do. _If_, and it's a big if, in my opinion, he isn't still going to be rendered useless by one of her Hollywood_ 'Gee I love you, Lucas'_ gazes. When Harry orders me back to the Grid I don't argue, because, apart from anything else, I want to get away from Lucas. I'm angry with myself for letting that comment get under my skin, and I'm angry with _him_ because I seem to have spent so much of my time lately trying to support him and boost his morale. As I snap at him not to let the bitch out of his sight, I remember Malcolm repeating to me what Harry once said to him – '_if you want loyalty, Malcolm, get a dog'._ It does nothing to make me feel any better.

I spend the rest of the afternoon on the Grid, directing the final security arrangements for the conference and liaising with Special Branch and the Diplomatic Protection Unit. Lucas checks in regularly from the hospital, to where the Met's sent an officer to help guard Miss America. We're at full stretch, even after having borrowed from other sections, and I can't spare anyone to do the job. Russell Price seems to have become a permanent fixture in my right ear, like some human form of tinnitus. It's lucky for him that his obvious ability and my shortage of officers are enough – just – to make me overlook his cocksure, patronizing attitude.

By early evening we've got it all locked down – the two delegations in their rooms in widely-separated wings of the hotel, the American Secretary of State and the PM cosily ensconced in Chequers, and a watertight _cordon sanitaire_ around the whole conference venue. The Grid has gradually emptied out as the night-staff replace the day shift. Lucas is still at the hospital, and he'll stay there overnight, even if it means sleeping in the corridor; Harry's taking no chances this time. I glance into his office. He's on the phone, no doubt reporting to Andrew Lawrence, but he looks up and beckons me in.

"Ros." He waves me to a seat as he hangs up.

"Lawrence?" I enquire.

He nods, rubbing his eyes. He looks as exhausted as everyone else. "No movement on that memory stick?"

"None at all." I shrug. "Looks like he's clean, Harry."

He grunts and shoves the phone away. "Maybe. But we don't drop our guard, Ros. Not yet. Not even with him. Have you talked to Lucas?"

"He checked in half an hour ago. He says Mata Hari's still dozy."

His scrutiny of me is uncomfortably intent. "Do you want to back-stop him, Ros?"

I shake my head. "Lucas doesn't approve of my methods." I must be more tired than I realize, because the words slip out before I can stop them. I want to kick myself as Harry frowns in dissatisfaction.

"What does that mean?" I shrug, but predictably, that isn't enough to put him off. He just watches me like a lion waiting for its prey to move, until I cave in and tell him what Lucas said. For a moment, he says nothing, and then, without asking, gets up and pours both of us a drink.

"You remember his debrief? Lucas's?" I nod. Of course I do. I handled it. "He's bound to be more affected by the - " I can sense him searching for the words, " the application of pressure, Ros. After how the Russians treated him he'll probably always be that way. When you've been on the receiving end of force, you tend either to react against its use or - " for a moment he hesitates, "or have fewer qualms about using it yourself on others, the way Adam did."

I look into the depths of the whisky. "Perhaps." But I don't believe it's the use of force that Lucas has a problem with. I believe it's the way _I _used it against Jo Portman. That comment was specific. And personal.

"Are you still having the dreams? About Jo?"

"Sometimes. Not as often as before." I know that I almost certainly will tonight, thanks to Lucas. "I still – feel it, though. Feel her presence sometimes."

I see the surprise on his face before he schools himself. He didn't expect to hear something as whimsical as that from the Ice Maiden of Section D. It's lucky he doesn't know _how_ I feel it; closer and closer, almost standing at my shoulder, waiting for me to join her.

"I suppose that will pass with time," he says at last. "The way these things do for all of us as they become more distant. One day she'll be a memory rather than a presence."

_Is that how you'll think of me?_ The thought comes into my mind so suddenly that I'm unprepared for it and for the stab of pain that accompanies it.

"Ros? What's wrong?" Harry sounds suddenly alarmed, and I realize that my reaction must have shown on my face.

"Nothing, Harry." Hastily, I scrabble to regain control. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," he counters.

"I'm just tired," I lie, "that's all. It's been a hell of a week."

He looks totally unconvinced. "Is something wrong personally?" I shake my head stubbornly. "Ros, try and make allowances. Lucas was fond of Jo, and he was a bit protective of her. I think he finds it hard to accept that there was no way out for her in Hampstead. He's argued with me that there had to have been another way, too. Despite what he said to you, I don't think it was personal. He admires you enormously."

I say nothing, not wanting to get into this any deeper, but again, Harry persists.

"Ros, are you quite sure you're all right?"

I nod, and take a deep swallow at the whisky. Harry gets up, walks round his desk, perches next to me on the sofa, and, to my horror, puts his arm around me.

"You know you can talk to me about it, Ros. Whatever it is, it will go no further than this office. And whatever it is, we can deal with it together, if you'll just let me help."

The temptation to let myself tell him is almost irresistible. He's the only person I trust to understand. But he's wrong. We _can't_ deal with this. I can feel Jo even now as if she were here in this room with us, pulling me gently but inexorably away from him. _You have to leave him, Ros. It's time. Time to go._

I move a fraction away from him. The gesture is enough, and Harry drops his arm.

"There's nothing to deal with, Harry." I force myself to smile and quash the sudden longing to weep. The bloody whisky isn't helping, making me maudlin and sentimental, and I put the glass down on the table. I spent a couple of hours last night writing him a letter in which I tried to tell him all the things I can't share with him now. "I just need some sleep, that's all. So do you."

"All right. I can't order you to talk to me, Ros." The worry on his face breaks my heart. "But when this is over we _will _talk. Not an interrogation. We'll just take the time to sit and chat for a while. Yes? Afterwards."

"Afterwards," I agree. I hate to see the anxiety I'm causing him. I wish I could reassure him, but this time I can't, because I can't get past the feeling that for me, there's not going to be an afterwards. The tears well up despite all my efforts to contain myself, and I know Harry's seen them.

"Sorry, Harry." I wipe my eyes. "I – er – I - " I'm floundering desperately for some kind of justification for my behaviour that he'll believe. "I'm sorry – it – it's just Lawrence … something he said." I try and turn away, but before I can, Harry's closed one hand round my wrist.

"What was it? What did he say, Ros?"

"Something about his father. It reminded me, that's all. I still miss mine so much sometimes – I'm sorry." It's not the exact truth, of course, but it's plausible enough that Harry doesn't call me on it, thank God. He may suspect I'm not being entirely honest, but at least he seems prepared to let it go.

"Sorry." I manage a laugh. "You ought to keep me off that stuff." I point at the remaining whisky. "Undermines my moral fibre."

"Your moral fibre's just fine." He pats my hand and then releases me. "I know how much you love him, Ros. I just wish he'd been worthy of you."

"Yeah, well." I look at my watch as I get up. "Lucas knows to stay in touch?"

"I've threatened him with a month on the Weirdo Line if he doesn't report in." He smiles, but he's still watching me closely, and as hard as it is, I know it's time to leave, _now_, before I let the mask slip again.

"Goodnight then, Harry."

He smiles. "Goodnight, Ros. See you tomorrow."

I glance back one last time as I reach the lift doors. He's on the phone again, but he lifts his hand in farewell and smiles at me through the window. I wave back and watch as the doors close with deliberation, like theatre curtains at the end of a play, and hide him from my view.

Predictably, I sleep poorly, so by five a.m. I give up and go for a walk. The streets are largely deserted, which suits me fine. Well, deserted except for three cats, a fox with her cubs and a couple of scavenging rats. It's a relief to be outside rather than tossing and turning in bed with half of me longing for sleep and half of me dreading the memories it might conjure up.

I walk the towpath as far as Richmond and stop at an early-opening riverside café for a cup of coffee. It's going to be another beautiful day. Early-rising swans are gliding elegantly downriver, and it's very quiet, except for the occasional quack of a duck. I can almost believe I'm deep in the countryside rather than in West London. Adam once told me (in secret, of course, he thought people would consider him a wimp if it got out) that he had dreams of retiring to a cottage on the river one day. Fishing, romantic walks along the water's edge, all the clichéd stereotypes that, if we're honest, a lot of us in the Service hanker after. I suppose it's the idea of a haven from the relentless pressure and the risks that tend to be our daily bread in the course of our careers. When I told him that _my_ dream was an old stone village high up in the North Yorkshire Dales – starkly beautiful, remote, sometimes bleak, and offering the kind of peace I've never really known – he laughed and said '_we'll compromise. Summer in Yorkshire, winter in Surrey.' _I'm sure we both knew it would never materialize, but for those few months it was part of the illusion I let myself live with – of something approaching a normal life, sometime in the future, with someone I loved.

The sun is warm on my shoulders, and after a short night, I can feel myself beginning to drift. It's so peaceful sitting there, for once dwelling on the _good_ memories, that It's hard to imagine that a bloody, destructive war might be about to break out halfway across the world, and on the streets of this city, too, come to that, if we don't keep a grip on the conference today.

That thought snaps me back to reality. I shake myself back to full alertness and start walking back home. I wonder if Harry left the Grid at all last night. I pull my mobile from my pocket and go to dial his number, but then I hesitate. I don't really _need_ to call him; if I'm honest I know perfectly well that I just want to hear his voice.

_You bloody soft idiot, Myers. _It's Lucas I should be talking to. The fact that neither he nor Harry has phoned in the course of the night is probably good news; I'm certain Harry will have ordered Lucas to let me get some rest unless major disaster strikes, and no phone calls means it probably hasn't. Still, I want to know if he's got anything out of Miss bloody US of A, so when I get back home I shower, dress, and decide to drive over to the hospital while there's time. Once the conference opens this afternoon nobody will have the time for friendly social visits.

I phone Lucas's mobile from the car. He sounds both tired and discouraged. Caulfield has come round, and she's talked, but only in generalities, and she still seems more concerned to suborn him than to come clean about her involvement – and more to the point, the involvement of anyone else_ – _in Nightingale. _Fair enough. You've dangled the charm carrot. Now we'll try the Boot-Face Myers big stick. _I tell him I'm on my way over to talk to her.

Immediately, he says he doesn't think that will work. He thinks I'll be 'too aggressive'. After all this, he's _still_ protecting her. I keep it light; I'm not going to argue with him. This isn't open for discussion.

"Come on, Lucas. You hold her hand, I'll pull her hair."

He sighs. "How was Lawrence?"

I scoot through an amber light. "Enigmatic. I think he's clean. Actually, he's strangely - "

"_Ros_!" Suddenly there's total panic in his voice. "Ros, the guard's gone - "

I throw down the phone and slam the accelerator pedal to the floor. Thank God I'm only two minutes from the hospital. I manage to reach it just in time to stop Lucas putting a bullet through the head of the man who shot Sarah Caulfield. Once we've got him safely back to the Grid and I've reported to Harry what happened, I hand the assassin's mobile over to Tariq and follow Lucas into the only part of the Grid where we're likely to get some privacy – the kitchen. He's fiddling around with the kettle when I come in, but he turns quickly enough when I close the door behind me. He looks like hell, but this time I've run out of patience. We've got a major operation on our hands this afternoon, and I have to be certain I can rely on him.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" I hiss. He picks up a mug without answering, but as he goes to fill it with water I snatch it from his hand and throw it into the sink. "That man," I grab the kettle from his other hand and slam it back onto the counter, "is our _only _link to Nightingale! You do _not_ put personal bloody revenge for your girlfriend above the imperatives of an operation!"

"I was pressuring him - " he starts.

_Yeah, right. _"You were about to put a bullet through his brain. Don't lie to me!" As he turns away I seize a fistful of his sweater and yank him back to face me. "Lucas, Sarah Caulfield was up to her neck in this. Do you understand that? She's been playing you like a fish from the beginning, and you've jumped on every hook she baited for you! She didn't love you, Lucas - you were a target! She was using you from the start!"

I see the anger in his eyes. _Good. _Anger will make him alert, and being alert will help him to think straight.

"And you can tell, can you?" There's contempt in his voice and absolute loathing in his eyes. "The difference between love and manipulation? You've never loved – _really_ loved - another human being, have you? You've never even come close!"

I glare at him. "This is not about me, Lucas, it's about you and your judgement. You were about to kill a man for reasons that were purely personal – never mind that his intelligence value to us! If you'd shot him you'd have severed our last, our _only_ definite link to Nightingale – and all to get revenge for her!"

Now his eyes are blazing, and I tense automatically. Lucas is a big man, but if he tries anything, especially in a confined space like this, I'll make bloody sure he comes off worst.

"She was scared." He's spitting the words at me now. "She wanted out, Ros. She would have told me what we needed to know if you'd just given me time to coax the information out of her. But that's not your way, is it? Not with Perrot, not with Jo, not with anyone. Bludgeoning it out of her, threatening him, putting a bullet through Jo … you don't even see a human being, do you? All _you_ see is an obstacle. That's all anyone is to you – a hindrance you have to get past on the road to writing another scintillating bloody chapter in the Ros Myers legend!"

"And to doing my job." _If he wants to play dirty then so can I._ "That's what I'm here for. And what _you're_ here for. But if your mind's too full of Sarah Caulfield's baby-blue eyes to remember that, then I'll happily relieve you of the burden, Lucas - right now!"

"You don't have the authority - "

He's obviously never heard of the strained relationship between red rags and bulls. "Oh yes, I do, if I think you're not competent. I won't risk this operation – or my own neck - on the melodramatics of your love life, Lucas! I have to know I can trust you -"

"Is that requirement mutual?" He's looming over me threateningly now, but I stand my ground. "Or am I just meant to trust _your _reliability on your say-so?"

"You have no right or reason - " I erupt, but again he interrupts me.

"I've read the file, Ros. Plotting to overthrow the government, betraying the Service twice – _becoming a member of an international conspiracy?_ Or was all that part of your job too?"

_You bastard._ I can feel myself flushing. "Don't you _dare_ throw that in my face!"

"Why not? What will you do if I prove to be unreliable in the heat of battle this afternoon? Shoot me without a backward glance and step over the corpse? I may not be able to do it, but everyone in this Goddamned building knows you can!"

_Step over the corpse? _The words are the last straw, andbefore I can stop to think I've slapped him across the face as hard as I can.

"You know _nothing _about how I feel about Jo Portman's death, Lucas. _Nothing." _ Suddenly, pain so intense that I can barely get the words out has replaced my fury with him. "You have no idea – no _idea - _" The lump in my throat is threatening to choke me, and I stop to check myself. It takes everything I have, but I manage to meet his eyes. "I don't care what you think about me, Lucas, but don't you _ever_ presume to prejudge my feelings again." I turn to the door and unlock it, but as I jerk it open he snatches at my wrist.

"Ros! Ros, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."

I don't answer. I know he's tired, upset, angry, and probably doesn't mean what he said. I can see from his face that his apology is genuine but I still don't want to hear it, not now. This stops here. It _has_ to. I dare not let myself think of Jo now. There's too much at stake. God knows how many lives could be lost if I lose focus because of my responsibility for taking that one. I'm about to pull myself from Lucas's grip when Harry, of all people, puts his head round the door.

"What the hell are you two doing?" He doesn't wait for a response. "Tariq's identified the owner of the mobile who ordered the assassin to kill Sarah Caulfield. It's Russell Price."

"_Shit._" Lucas looks stunned, and when he looks at me all the hostility's gone from his face.

"My God," I murmur. My palms are damp with sweat as the implications of that sink in. I look up at Harry. "Well, at least we know what we're up against."

He holds my gaze. "I've just heard that the preliminary round of talks has been suspended and the Indians have gone back to their embassy. Andrew Lawrence is on his way to the hotel to talk to the Pakistani President, and I'm trying to get in touch with the Prime Minister at Chequers. I need you over at the hotel - now."

"On our way." I glance over my shoulder at Lucas and get a confirming nod in return. I nod back, sealing a tacit accord that our dispute will be filed until this is over. I've challenged Lucas's pride enough that he'll do his job properly now if only to prove to me that he can, and that's all I'm concerned about. My own hurt doesn't matter. The image Lucas has of me is the one that I myself have cultivated, and it isn't wrong. Besides, there's only one person in the world whose opinion matters to me any longer.

"Ros!" Harry calls as we turn into the corridor. I look back.

"I'm relying on you, Ros. Stop him. Whatever it takes."

"I will. Whatever." He gives a tight smile, turns on his heel, and is gone.


	10. Chapter 10

My name's Lucas North. The other Senior Case Officer in Section D. That was the last entry Ros ever made. She was killed a few hours later as she tried to save the Home Secretary from a bomb explosion at the hotel where the Indo-Pakistani conference was being held. No. No, not tried. She _did_ save him. He's still in hospital being treated for his injuries, but they say that with time he'll make a full recovery. When Harry and I went to see him he told us what he remembered, but I'll get on to that in a minute.

Other than the Home Secretary, I must have been the last person to see Ros alive. That's why Harry said I should be the one to provide this epilogue to her diary as an epitaph to her life. Nothing pompous or formal, he said, just tell the end of her story. Just talk about Ros as she was - as you knew her.

The trouble is, of course, that I'm not sure I really knew Ros as she was. I'm not sure anyone did. The Ros I knew was brilliant, witty, incredibly brave, and absolutely infuriating – sometimes all at once. She was also ruthless, cold, and in most ways unknowable. So I think it's best that I just tell you how she died, and what happened in those last few hours of her life.

When we reached the hotel we found it in uproar because of an unspecified 'security incident' and the mobile network was down. Ros and I had radios, but we couldn't contact the Grid. Ros didn't hesitate; she led me straight in, barely stopping to hear the report from the Met's Gold Commander. He literally had to brief her on the run. When we reached the room of the sole Indian not to have returned to the Embassy with the rest of the delegation and found the bomb, she immediately ordered him to bring in the disposal experts.

'_Too late. We can't defuse it now._' Those words would have caused any other woman to panic and run screaming as fast as she could. Ros merely said, "We'll go for evacuation", told the experts to get clear and ordered me to go and ready the helicopter on the pad.

When I found it was sabotaged and told her, we both knew that Price had to be responsible. Ros had ordered the Special Branch team to bring President Madrassah and Andrew Lawrence up to the roof, but the disabling of the helicopter changed all that. We had only one way to get them out – through the reception and straight out of the front doors.

We were on our way down the stairs when we found the body of one of the Special Branch officers sprawled on the steps.

"Price must have got them." That was all Ros said, but the hatred in her voice was more eloquent than a torrent of words could have been. When we confronted Price and his colleague seconds later she never said a word – at least not until we had Price trussed to a chair feet from where he himself had placed the bomb. The countdown was visible on the laptop screen inches from her hand, but she never even glanced at it, just stood looking at Price. Her face was completely expressionless. I don't know what effect it had on him, but it chilled me. It was like watching a machine. I remember seeing a full thirty seconds tick past on the screen and still she didn't move. I was starting to think she'd lost her grip altogether when she finally spoke. I should have known better.

"Lucas, go and find the President and the Home Secretary. Get them out. Mr Price and I will be staying here." Her voice was so quiet it was barely above a whisper, but the venom in it turned my stomach. Every officer on the Grid knew that Harry shouting was bad news, but that you were _really_ in trouble when Ros Myers lowered her voice.

Her tone brooked no argument, and I went. It was a hopeless task, and I knew it as I raced down the corridors flinging open door after door. Time was running out and there were over five hundred rooms in the hotel. I radioed Ros, but when I told her we had to get out if Price wouldn't reveal the location of the President and the Home Secretary she told me to go and said she'd follow me.

_Like hell you will._ That time I disobeyed, and thank God I was still searching when the radio crackled again and she gave me the room number. God alone knows how she got it out of Price – and He's the only one who ever will know now. Ros could be pitiless when she felt the occasion called for it, and we know she didn't show any mercy to Russell Price. What remains of him were found – and there weren't many – were found in the room.

For a moment, when we found the two politicians, it seemed as if the miracle we needed had occurred and we would be able to get them out – or at least far enough from the bomb to save their lives. Until we saw that Price had given them a paralysing agent and that neither was capable of walking. For a second the realization paralysed me too. It was Ros who made the decision and ordered me to get the Pakistani president out. She was right – it was the correct operational decision. Ros never got those wrong. Only by getting him in front of the TV cameras and making it clear he was alive and well could we stop Price's little scheme from coming to fruition. I could carry him down, but it meant leaving Lawrence behind. And if Ros wouldn't do that, then it also meant sacrificing her.

"I'm not leaving without you," I said. It sounds theatrical now, doesn't it? Meaningless, since I'm still here, safe and well, and Ros is dead, but I meant it then.

She looked down at Lawrence and shook her head. "And I'm not leaving without him." She spoke firmly; not the slightest trace of fear in her voice. "I gave Harry my word, Lucas. Whatever it takes." Then she looked at me and smiled. "You're stronger than me. Go."

I've played that scene over and over in my mind in the last week. Now – when it's too late for me to tell her – I finally understand perhaps a tiny fraction of what Ros went through after the death of Jo Portman. The death I callously accused her of not caring about. I can't forget that smile. It was a mixture of so many things: determination, resignation – and undeserved absolution for me. Ros didn't smile easily or often, but on the rare occasions when I earned one from her it was all the more precious for that. I always used to think of Ros's smile as being like sunlight sparkling on snow. God, she'd snort in derision if she heard that.

I heaved Madrassah over my shoulder and carried him to the door. And that's my last image of Ros, the one I had as I glanced back on my way into the corridor - kneeling there next to Lawrence, the smile still on her face. I've thought since that in those last few seconds there was something tremulous about it, and I think I glimpsed tears in her eyes. I'm not sure, and in a way it doesn't matter. Harry said to talk about Ros Myers as I knew her, and the Ros I knew wasn't a frigid automaton. When she ordered me to go, she would have known that she wasn't going to leave the hotel alive, and I can't bear the thought of how afraid she must have been. For all her courage, Ros had the feelings and emotions of any normal woman, but she kept them under such tight control that many people believed – completely erroneously - that she had none at all.

'_You're stronger than me.' _How ironic that those should have been the last words she spoke to me. I'm not stronger than Ros Myers. Well, physically, perhaps, but not in the way that matters. Not mentally or spiritually. In those respects Ros was stronger than anyone I've ever met, male or female. It's odd, but it was only when I saw her on the stretcher afterwards that I realized how slight and petite she really was. Ros always carried herself well, but it was the sheer strength of her personality that made her seem taller and bigger than she was. Her strength wasn't in muscles or speed, although God knows she had it in those too. It was in her courage and her resilience. In that fierce independence. And in the determination that saved Andrew Lawrence's life even though it meant sacrificing her own. In death she looked diminished, vulnerable … and so alone.

It was almost a week before the Home Secretary was allowed visitors, and Harry ordered me to go to the hospital with him. Lawrence hadn't been told about Ros, both because he hadn't been judged well enough and for security reasons. However, the minute we entered the room his eyes went straight to Harry. He didn't bother with preliminaries.

"She didn't come through, did she? Rosalind."

"No, Home Secretary. No, I'm afraid she didn't." I had to admire Harry. He gave the impression of a man who was completely emotionally detached. I knew he wasn't. I'd seen his face when the emergency services brought Ros out of the hotel. He was her executor, and once she began to believe that she would never be reconciled with her family, Ros had asked him to act as her next-of-kin too. So all the awful paperwork and red tape in which we tie up a death had fallen to him. And this was worse than losing Jo. Harry had been fond of Jo, as we all were; she was charming, vivacious and friendly. It was hard _not _to be fond of her. Ros was abrasive, caustic, and often difficult to like, but she was much more than a fellow-officer to him. Jo and Ruth had told me something of Ros's difficult early days in Section D – her fury with Harry about her father's conviction, and the vicious way she tried to hit back at him through Ruth. But by the time I arrived he was more like a father to her than her real one, and now he was grieving like one.

There was a long silence after he spoke. At last Lawrence glanced at me and then back at Harry.

"I tried to make her leave, Sir Harry." Harry raised his eyebrows. "She did try to get me out of there, you know. She dragged me down the corridor. God knows how. I was a dead weight, and I couldn't help her. She kept stumbling and falling, but she wouldn't stop. I told her. Said it was no use both of us dying and that she should save herself."

Harry cleared his throat. "What did she say?"

Lawrence toyed with the edge of the sheet. "She could hardly speak, she was gasping for breath. I didn't get some of it, but I did hear that. She said '_Not in the job description, I'm afraid'."_

I saw a painful smile flicker over Harry's face. "That's Ros, Home Secretary. If she thought something was her duty nothing else mattered to her but doing it."

Lawrence nodded. "She told me to look down the corridor. There was a light at the end. The stairwell, I suppose – maybe a fire exit. I don't know. She said, "_Do you see the light? That's our way out of here. Just keep moving. Keep moving towards the light."_ All the time she was heaving and tugging at me." He shook his head. He wasn't looking at us, he was gazing across the room, but I think he was seeing Ros dragging his inert body down that hotel corridor. "She was so tiny." That was more to himself than to us. "Where did she get the strength from?"

Again, Harry smiled faintly. "A lot of us have asked ourselves that question about Ros Myers, Home Secretary. And very few of us have ever come up with a satisfactory answer."

The politician blinked and seemed to focus back in again. "No. I'm afraid I can't tell you very much more. When the bomb exploded, I heard her scream." He must have seen Harry flinch, because he added quickly, "It wasn't from fear, Sir Harry. It was more like rage."

_Because she believed she'd failed, _I thought. If there was one thing Ros hated, it was failing at something.

"She threw herself over me," Lawrence continued. "It wasn't just the force of the explosion. She did it deliberately to protect me." I saw him swallow. "I must have lost consciousness then. I don't remember any more until I woke up here." He picked up a glass of water and took a few sips from it. "I'm sorry, Sir Harry. Very sorry. She was a remarkable woman. Even on so short an acquaintance with her I realized that. I wish I could have known her better. And I truly do wish I had been able to make her leave."

"You have nothing with which to reproach yourself, Home Secretary." Harry made a harrumphing sound which most of us knew meant he was about to say something he was embarrassed about. "And it's Harry. Just Harry."

I saw Lawrence's eyes widen in surprise. He hesitated, and then asked, "Where is Rosalind now?"

"We're burying her tomorrow," Harry answered, glancing at me. "In Wandsworth Cemetery. That's what she asked me to do." I knew he wouldn't tell Lawrence the rest of what he had learned only when he opened Ros's personal papers: that she had bought the plot next to Jo Portman's grave a week after the younger officer's death. He had told me Ros had left him a personal letter with those papers, but he hadn't divulged what was in it and none of us would ask.

Lawrence nodded. "I see. I don't think they'll let me attend, but I'd like to send some flowers. I know it's a pathetic gesture, but I owe her my life and I'd like her to know how very grateful and humbled I am by what she did."

"She'd appreciate that." Harry hesitated. "Your predecessor will be there; I'm sure he'll be glad to represent you."

There was a mixture of weariness and sadness in Andrew Lawrence's eyes, but he managed a smile. "Nick Blake?" He laughed briefly. "Do you know what he said to me about Rosalind when he left office?" We shook our heads. "He said, '_Harry's a man of the old school. A gentleman to the core and a bastard to his bootlaces.'" _I tried to hide a smile."When I asked about your deputy, he said, '_Harry has a toe missing on his left foot. Says it happened when he was in Belfast. Personally I think that was the part they used to clone his number two, Ros Myers. You'd think a strong gust of wind would blow her away, and when you first meet her you get the impression butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Don't be fooled; she's Harry to a T - except with twice the looks.' _When I asked if she was a lady to the core, he said,_ 'Only when it suits her.'"_

Both Harry and I were smiling now.

"That's the kind of epitaph Ros would appreciate most," Harry said. "That, and to see you back in the office." He shook Lawrence's hand. "Thank you, Home Secretary."

We left him then. The following day we buried Ros next to Jo. The chapel was filled with flowers – an enormous spray of deep crimson roses, Ros's favourites, from Harry, a beautiful bouquet of tropical orchids from Nicholas Blake, and a large vase of white lilies carrying the Home Secretary's card. There were just the six of us there: Harry and Ruth, me, Tariq, Blake and Malcolm Wynne-Jones, whom Harry had phoned to break the news. We listened to extracts from Faure's Requiem, which Ros adored, but there was no eulogy. Harry was the obvious person to give one, but Malcolm told me afterwards that in the letter she had left, Ros had asked him not to. She said she didn't deserve one. Ruth shook her head sadly at that and murmured, '_no emotional incontinence.' _I don't know what she meant, but Malcolm smiled. I think he did. Personally,I think Ros knew how painful reading a eulogy would be for Harry, and she didn't want to hurt him any more. In that same letter she _did_ express the hope that Malcolm might read a poem for her. It was the only special request she made. And I think the best way to end this diary is with the verses he chose to read.

'Your dextrous wit will haunt us long,

Wounding our grief with yesterday.

Your laughter is a broken song,

And death has found you, kind and gay.

We may forget those transient things

That made your charm and our delight,

But loyal love has deathless wings

That rise and triumph out of night.

So, in the days to come, your name

Shall be as music that ascends

When honour turns a heart from shame…

O heart of hearts! O friend of friends!'

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

_**Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. And to those who took the time and trouble to send reviews, thank you for your kindness.**_


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